


Asaṃkhyeya

by aleksandr_starshow



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M, Multiple Crossovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-17
Updated: 2014-07-21
Packaged: 2017-12-29 16:05:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 32,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1007360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aleksandr_starshow/pseuds/aleksandr_starshow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Asaṃkhyeya - n., 1. Term related to the Buddhist metaphysics of time. Each of the periodic manifestations and dissolutions of universes which go on eternally has four parts, called asamkhiya kalpas.<br/>2. A Sanskrit words interpreted as innumerable, and countless.</p><p>>>> </p><p>A mission in Kenya takes a surprising turn when the Mark asks for help from James Bond and MI6. Shortly afterward, MI6 finds itself uncovering a global conspiracy centering around an energy conglomerate keen on keeping its name clean, even at the cost of human lives. With the help of a banned technology involving dreams and the world’s best computer hackers, led by Q and an ominous figure who goes by the name of Wasp, James Bond and MI6 tackle the biggest mission of their lives. Together, Q and Bond unearth the chessboard of high politics… while also discovering a few things about themselves along the way.</p><p>---</p><p>Note from author: This story is very plot-oriented and though it includes the evolution of a relationship between Bond and Q,  I don't intend to rush them as I wish for everything to happen naturally.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Skyfall Lodge, 1982 and onward_

_“Re-requiem aeternum d-dona eis Domine...e...et lux perpetua eis.” He was chilled to the bone in the Scottish mists. “Requiescant in...in pace. Amen.” He crossed himself, just in case. Just in case they really were above, watching, smiling down upon him, their earthly existences extinguished like candles in the wind. The boy’s lower lip trembled and he wrapped his coat tighter around himself. He ran a trembling hand over their names and then tightened his grasp on his beads with his other. They were cold and provided little comfort but the roots of the Scottish landscape around him seemed to threaten the temporary stable calm he had collected for himself; he needed something to which to cling._

_When his aunt died a few years later, his hope began to fade. Not long after his fifteenth birthday, Obenhauser passed on, only deepening the invisible scars wrought upon the young boy’s soul. But he lost all stock in the world of abstraction and emotional tangents. And that was, perhaps, when he first started reconstructing himself - bone by bone, fiber by fiber. He would remake himself of steel and those around him became shadows, to be admired, to be greeted, but to never provide any real warmth or substance._

_Nearly indestructible, quietly satisfied with his distance, a force in his own right, he believed that he lived solely in the realm of physical reality._

_Until she died._

_And the reconstruction was no longer a phase, but a burden that had been placed upon him and would linger for the rest of his life._

 

Present Day 

This should have been easy. It really should have been. Capture the Mark. Interrogate. Kill. James Bond crept closer to that oak table where the Mark sat, sipping her coffee, idly glancing about. It might have been wiser for Bond to err on the side of caution; the Mark was too exposed, sitting here in her boot cut Levi jeans and Ralph Lauren polo shirt, a long wave of auburn curls gliding down her back. She wasn't wearing shoes, merely white, cotton socks. This was all very strange and sent up an astonishing amount of alarms in 007's mind. 

Bond paused, eyebrows furrowing, only watching her through his peripheral vision. His eyes scoured the room, surveyed the people who passed him, those who sat at their own tables, who ordered their drinks from the waiter drifting down each uneven aisle. He looked for signals: maybe a flicker of the eyes, a penetrating stare, the twisting of a mug, tying one's shoelaces, maybe putting on one's hate, a pattern traced lazily into the table top by restless fingers. 

There was nothing of consequence. _How could there be nothing of consequence? The Mark is sitting right there, less than six metres from where I stand!_

She didn't even seem like she was waiting. A book was open in front of her and she shifted her gaze from the room, to her coffee, to the book in no discernible pattern. 

“ _Kahawa_ , mister?” a thickly accented voice inquired and Bond turned to face the waiter, a man with broad features, kind eyes, and a round tray with little mugs of coffee. 

Bond forced a smile. “ _Hapana, asante sana_.”

The waiter's smile widened and then he made his way to the next person. 

Did Bond really look like he wanted coffee? He was standing in the archway between the two rooms of the cafe, gazing at-- Wait, where did she go? The Mark, with her auburn curls, and her book was nowhere to be seen. Bond moved swiftly, though without obvious purpose to as not to give his position away. The waiter was busy attending to more customers; there was no rush, he must remember. “Be patient with this one,” M had said, surely in jest. Patient! _Patient!_ Bond's very veins seemed to vibrate with rapidly fading anticipation. This mission was much too slow, much too uneventful. He darted between the tables, heading towards the back exit of the cafe. Suddenly a slender figure blocked his path, glancing him up and down as though sizing him up.

“Well!” exclaimed the stranger heartily. “You look like a man who could be pretty good in showboating a game. Up for some, yeah?” 

It was no use. Bond pushed around the stranger and peered into the back alley. He had no idea where the Mark could have gone. She could have disappeared beneath a trapdoor for all he knew. 

With a rueful sigh, Bond sat at the nearest table and was about to contact HQ but was almost immediately accompanied by the stranger who had barred his path. This caused all of Bond's nerves to swing on edge. 

The stranger was very narrow looking; that was the best way to describe him. Long and narrow, but not tall. Wiry. His face was unremarkable, with a large forehead that creased inquisitively at Bond's quiet, apprehensive demeanor. A wide, thin-lipped mouth, a ratlike face. Sporting a plain, white blouse beneath an uninteresting flannel vest, the man gave an air of being rather simple, neat and perhaps, a bit sly. 

“May I help you?” Bond asked. 

The man fished around in his non-descript briefcase for a bit and then put a crisp-looking deck of cards on the table. “I happen to be very good at poker and you, sir, look like a challenge. Care to play?” Without waiting for a response, the dark-haired, pallid man dealt the cards. 

“You play with these often?” Bond inquired. 

The stranger smiled a charming smile.  

“Naturally. These are my carrying cards, so to speak. I admit that I'm rather good at spotting worthy opponents.”

Bond pushed the cards back across the table and stood up, straightening out his own jacket. “You're also good at wasting others' time. Now, if you'll excuse me...”

Bond left the cafe and walked through the streets of Mombasa, buying a couple of pears from an open air market, munching on them thoughtfully. The hustle and bustle of the city filling his ears and eyes and the smells filtering through his nostrils and all of this, this maelstrom of Kenyan life, did much to soothe the buzzing inside his head. Back in the cafe, the Mark had been sitting to the left of where he had been standing. That dapper stranger arriving with the desire to play poker hadn’t been a coincidence. The Mark must have used some sort of triangular method of communication. Something she did must have communicated to an unknown third party in the room. Perhaps the third party had reacted by paying off the waiter to come and offer Bond coffee, thus distracting him for the briefest of moments... surely, it wasn't a coincidence.  Was the poker player the one who had warned off the Mark? Bond stored his face in the back of his mind for for future reference.

Frowning, he retraced the room inside his head: limestone walls, hardwood oak floors, a cockroach here and there, but mostly clean aside from that. Sixteen small, round tables, each accompanied by two, hard-backed chairs. Not the most comfortable, but great if one wished for a quiet place to work. There had been relatively little noise and no shadows to hide within. The man in the grey vest and white blouse had not been in the room when Bond had entered, he was sure of it. 

He had arrived in Mombasa to solve one mystery. Instead, he had encountered another. 

 

Later that night, Bond bought a ticket for a dhow cruise and found a seat on the newly furnished deck close to the bow. There was a single candle lit on his table and no candles on the two adjacent tables. The moon had risen brilliantly over the water, casting its comforting glow across the rippling surfaces of the ocean. The dhow rocked gently as it left the harbour behind and an hour later, it drifted in front of Fort Jesus. A shadow crept upon Bond and he waited, ready, for the first words to be spoken. 

“You look more striking with blond hair,” said a voice and the shadow melted into the thinly built man who slid into the seat opposite Bond for the second time that day. “Finally removed the wig?”

“Who are you?” Bond asked, his adrenaline spiking. 

The man smiled that thin-lipped smile again. “Levine. Arthur Levine.”

“You don't really play poker, do you.”

Chuckling, Levine shook his head. “No, not really. That's more our Forger's specialty.”

“Next time, don't use a brand new deck and leave the wrapper lying on the floor.”

“Duly noted, Mr. Bond.”

007 had not expected to be called by his real name but proceeded as though he had. “What's your connection with Scarlet Kingston?”

Levine scratched his nose and learned over the table. “What makes you think I have a connection to any, ah, Scarlet Kingston?”

Bond stroked the Walther PPK beneath his jacket. “Kingston sold her shoes to the waiter in order to stall me. Thus forcing me to run into you.”

Levine opened his mouth but a smoothy, silky voice reminiscent of the way the dhow effortlessly glided through the water interrupted: “Don't worry, Arthur, I don't think we have anything to fear from Mr. Bond.” Kingston slunk by, her face shadowed. And in the next few seconds, James Bond came to three conclusions:

1\. The Mark was unarmed.

2\. Neither Kingston or Levine were in charge of the whole operation. 

3\. Something much larger was going on; the Mark and Levine were only insects cocooned up on the outer rim of this gargantuan spider web. They were food. 

 _Which raises the question... what am I_? Bond abruptly got to his feet, pressing the buttons on a few gadgets inside his jacket as he did so, and he flipped over the table. Kingston screamed. Levine cursed, crashing backwards onto the deck as he got a chest full of table. The candle extinguished, dousing the front of the dhow in darkness. Bond made to grab Kingston but she slipped from his grasp like a bar of soap. In an instant, she was across the deck and into the water by the rocky jetties. Jumping around the fallen table, and nearly tripping in the darkness, Bond followed her over the edge. Right before he hit the water, he heard Levine wheezing,  “I told you he'd be difficult to convince, Eames!”

 

The water filled Bond with renewed strength and vigor as the agent propelled his way through the shifting currents. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a pair of goggles that Q had customised for him: embedded with a tiny, waterproof camera, a powerful headlight, and lenses that adjusted to darkness, Bond found that he was able to see rather clearly through what would have been hideously murky waters. Especially at this time of night when the tide was high and the bay was busy with boat traffic. 

Bond could still hear Q snidely chastising him for refusing to take him the powered flippers he had created. They would have allowed Bond to move even more swiftly through the ocean waters but he had insisted on carrying minimal luggage and refused despite the clever folding system Q had devised for the flippers.

Now, as he blew the air out from behind his goggles, he vaguely regretted it. 

He pulled himself through the water, ditching his jacket in the process, sucking on the oxygen pipe Q had given him - an invention that would allow him to stay underwater for up to fifteen minutes.

Bond squinted through the gloom as he flipped open his Personal Digital Sonar Assistant, and stared at the screen. It emitted various beeps and recorded the echoes, highlighting the objects up to one hundred metres away. And one of those objects happened to be a very sluggish human figure. 

Using only the guiding light of the PDSA, Bond scrambled through the cracks and jags of the boulders that rose up from the shallow ocean floor. The water grew rapidly shallower and Bond left the large rocks behind as he swam away from the jetty in pursuit of Kingston. Kingston reached the shoreline first and she was nearly out of sight by the time Bond surfaced. Elegant as always, the famous 007 tripped on his way to the beach. He regained his sense of sophistication and darted into the trees outlining Fort Jesus, following Kingston's fresh footprints in the sand. Apparently she was once again without shoes.

Fort Jesus had been built in 1593 by some Spanish-Portuguese king that Bond couldn't quite remember. Fernando? Philipe? Who knew. An aerial view of the Fort revealed it to have been constructed into a shape of a man but from ground level, it just looked like a bunch of beige-coloured, vine-covered walls. If Bond had been on holiday (which he rarely was) he might have stayed to explore the grounds, but now the time could not be afforded. He ran up a small flight of stairs, vaulted up an iron grated gate and over a stone archway and down a path of grass and stone. Kingston's auburn hair whipped out of sight around one of the side buildings and Bond was hot on her tracks. He dashed down a main road, dodging traffic and various, indignant cries from some of the locals as he knocked into them, turning over baskets of fruit and art stands and paintings and who knew what else.

Kingston skidded around a corner past an unassuming hotel and Bond was merely seconds behind her now; her stockinged feet slowed her down as she stumbled over the uneven pavement and piles of trash and junk.They both had stumbled into a circular parking lot and Kingston was darting in between the cars faster than the prize pony in a barrel race. 

Bond had just passed a rusty Volkswagen when--

BOOM!

Heat scorched the back of his neck and he was thrust forward from a wave blast. He smashed into the pavement, scraping his palms and wrists.

“What the--”

Behind him, the Volkswagen had blown up and now sat, flaming from the insides. He staggered to his feet, turned tail and ran and every car he passed exploded into flame. Sweat dripped down his face from the heat; bits and pieces of debris pricked his skin and he found himself running with his arms shielding his face. Kingston's reddish hair was barely visible, bobbing in the distance between vehicles. 

BOOM!

One after the other, cars exploded, forcing Bond to run for his life. 

His ears rang. 

He had to get away from the cars. Get to safety. 

His adrenaline peaked and energy flared through his screaming muscles, pushing him onward, faster, faster, faster, desperate for an end to the noise and the heat--

Kingston disappeared down a gravel path that led towards a grove of trees, ignoring the broken glass strewn across the streets. Bond cursed her high pain tolerance and sprinted on past the Burhani monument. 

And into darkness. 

The moon vanished. 

Bond slowed, paused, listened. 

The only sounds that could be heard aside from the ringing in his ears came from the streets; people crowing with laughter as they staggered home from bars and clubs, mothers yelling at their children, cars honking at each other...

Bond tuned those out and listened for the finer sounds of the night: the conspicuous sound of snapping twigs, the slightest sound of a breath...

His hand closed lightly over the small radio transmitter in his pocket. He might have to call in the mission. Kingston could be far away by now, picked up by an accomplice. Lost in one of the markets. Blending into her surroundings just as he was attempting to do now. 

Damn.

And then it came--

\--swiftly through the darkness, a loud. Piercing. Crack!

Bond pressed the radio transmitter and drew his Walther PPK in one fluid motion.

“Ah, ah, ah, I wouldn't do that if I were you,” said that familiar, silky voice. Kingston stepped noiselessly into a ray of moonlight that shone through the trees. Her face was perfectly smooth and unscarred. She looked familiar; like one of those actresses who wasn't very famous but whose face everyone knew even if they didn't know her name. Her hair was now tied back into a ponytail and her feet were mud-splattered. 

She was breathing lightly and was seemingly unarmed still, though a small, rectangular object was in her palm. 

A detonator. 

“Splendid weapon you have there,” Bond said, a smile playing at the corners of his lips. “Your design?”

A smirk crept across her face. “No, of course not. My husband's. But shh, don't tell him I stole his favourite toy.”

“Oh, I promise your secret is safe with me.” Bond's lips tightened. 

Scarlet Kingston walked up to him, fearless, right until the gun was pressed into her sternum. Lowering her voice, she whispered, 

“Perhaps you're unaware, 007, but... you're surrounded.”

She stood up straight again, smiling. 

And from within the shadows, clothed men appeared, stalking forward, all loaded with automatic weapons and kevlar vests. Bond's eyes swept the man-made perimeter and counted twenty-three men. More than he could take. 

“One wrong move...” Scarlet's tone was of infuriatingly smug.

In the distance, the faint whirring of helicopter blades could be heard. 

“Tell me,” Bond said, stalling, “Why does your Mr. Levine need to convince me? And who is this Eames?”

A flicker, a shadow of a doubt flashed across Kingston's face. 

“Really,” the agent continued, “You could have destroyed me at almost any given chance. Why lead me into an ambush when you could have taken me home to whomever in a thousand pieces? You know who I am. You knew who I was before I even set foot here in Mombasa.” Kingston was no spy; her emotions betrayed her readily. “You need me alive.”

Kingston blushed and leaned in towards Bond. “No. You need _me_ alive.”

Bond compartmentalised his own emotions quickly. “You’d better explain fast or Her Royal Majesty's men will have you blown to smithereens before you can blink.”

Three spotlights filtered down through the trees and illuminated both Bond and Kingston. 

“Are you all right down there?” called a voice through a megaphone. 

Bond gazed at Kingston and raised an eyebrow. She sighed, raised her hand, and all twenty-three men lowered their weapons and melted back into the woods. 

“I won't let you out of my sight,” 007 said. 

Kingston smiled again, rather sarcastically this time. “How romantic.”

Several men slid down a rope extending from the nearest helicopter. One took off his helmet while two others handcuffed Kingston and marched her away. 

“Are you all right?”

“Of course, Tanner. How nice of you to personally come and see to me.”

“Ah, well, Bond, you know how I fancy an adventure here and there.” Bill Tanner scratched his ear. “We caught someone we believe to have been an accomplice. A man ID'ed as Arthur Samuel Levine. His history is patchy as far as we can tell; many holes we believe to have been filled by false trails, false identities... Q is working on it back at HQ.”

“Jolly good,” came Bond's dry response. “So, how about a drink and a game of golf?”

 


	2. Chapter 2

**“Everything** **we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”** \-- Marcus Aurelius

Bond hated flying. The act, in itself, was not wholly exciting and, while being so far up that the curvature of the Earth was nearly discernible, he always felt like he was in a state of transience. As though he were waiting. Because that's how it always was. A flight meant that he was leaving Point A to appear at Point B or vice versa. Point B was the exciting part – the part that he was always so eager to experience. Sitting aboard a plane, unable to move around at will, boringly confined to a speeding object thousands of metres above the ground... maybe it would have been more exciting if he had been in space, but nonetheless a plane was symbolic of his restlessness. Of his depression, which always ebbed and flowed like the waves of the ocean. It taunted him while he was in the air and vanished once he was on the ground.

A dragon never sleeps with both eyes closed and when Bond forced his body into a relaxed slumber, his mind raced and he never forgot, for a moment, who he was, where he was, or where he was going.

 

_Skyfall Lodge, 1982_

_“Please come out of there...” Not a word of response._

_“I made supper, dear lad.” Nothing._

_The blond boy sat in the crook of the tunnel, his knees drawn up to his chin. His mind was full of mountains, mountains he would later conquer, but dangerous mountains with their jagged peaks and icy slopes. It had been a combination of mistakes, he had been told. A poorly tied knot. A fault in the equipment. Error in judgment._

_He didn’t believe any of this. Monique and Andrew would never make such a slew of mistakes. He invented a multitude of reasons as to why the ropes had failed, each one more outrageous than the last._

_He didn’t come out for two days. He didn’t eat. He was nauseous, thirsty and sick when he finally crawled forth from his den of mourning. It had taken almost exactly 48 hours to come to a most certain conclusion._

_But that conclusion wouldn’t be realised until later._

Present Day

Bond crashed at a hotel the next day and slept for eleven hours. He was called to medical and ignored it. His quartermaster asked about the equipment and Bond ignored that, too. It wasn't until interrogation had been set up that Bond sat up, immediately alert, showered, and dressed quickly and headed to Vauxhall Cross.

Down eleven flights of stairs (or an elevator if you must), existed a long, bland corridor with oddly happy paintings that constantly reminded one of the...exquisite blandness of the corridor. There were four rooms – each looked the same from the outside, none of them very assuming.

Bond entered the second on the right after swiping a keycard and undergoing a retina scan. The room was perfectly rectangular, with a huge projection screen at one end and an enormous window at the other. On the screen was a string of coding and a young man with curly, chestnut brown hair sat in front of it, typing upon a customised laptop. This young man took little notice of Bond and it may have been through his own lack of interest or the fact that he was thoroughly engrossed in his work.

On the other end of the room, beyond the window, was a small chamber, also unassuming, with its cylinder block, bombast-protective walls. One person sat in this tiny room at a dull, harmless looking table.

Bond recognised Arthur Levine immediately. And Bond wasn't the only spectator: Chief of Staff Sir John Sawers, who might have been Mitt Romney’s cousin, second in command, Lt. Colonel Bill Tanner, Lt. RN, Eve Moneypenny (who raised an eyebrow at his entrance), the eminent M, and a couple of people Bond never cared to familiarise himself with. Eventually, Q, cleaning his spectacles with a small, white cloth, came to join them as well. All were wearing ear pieces.

“Good to see that you have returned safely to Legoland after a month,” M said casually, his hands in his pockets.

“Two and a half _weeks,”_ Bond corrected.

“Two and a half weeks to find a Mark who wanted to be caught.”

“She did _not.”_

M made a satisfied noise.

Another man entered the room where Arthur Levine sat – a tall man, with dark topaz hair and mixed features. Bond knew the man's name to be Oscar Delgado, a reliable man with impeccable linguistics and cryptography skills. He worked under Q.

“Mr. Levine,” he began. “You seem to have led a very, ah, curious life... there are several blocks missing, in fact. But I suppose we'll get to that. What were you doing in Mombasa?”

“Looking for a double-oh agent named James Bond.”

Arthur's response caused several wary glances to be exchanged. Bond stared hard at the young man before him, a man in completely customised clothing and only slightly disheveled hair from, perhaps, a lack of sleep. He had never seen the man before in his entire life.

“And why were you searching for James Bond?”

“Because I knew he was searching for Ms. Kingston.”

“Did you?”

“Yes.” Arthur did not seem like the type of man who was used to being interrogated. No, he wasn't cocky or pretentious; in fact, he was nervous in an almost scared sort of way – as though he were afraid this was going to go badly. As though he were innocent and awaiting his death sentence. Despite his choice of occupation, this was an honest man.

“Elaborate.”

Arthur fidgeted for a moment and then said, “Because he believes Ms. Kingston to be in the possession of a few very dangerous secrets... regarding nuclear technology.”

“Is she?”

“Yes... but not all of them. Not the ones we actually need. And using her to get to the real mastermind won't help either.”

“The real mastermind?”

Bond's eyes flashed. Q was staring intently at Arthur. He had perched himself up on another table and his feet were propped up against the window. Upon his lap was a £15,000 computer. It hummed quietly and Q's fingers flew across the keyboard, typing as he watched Arthur's interrogation.

“The real mastermind is her husband, James Kingston.”

“She mentioned him,” Bond said quietly.

“Are you recording this?” M asked Moneypenny. She nodded.

“James Kingston is close friends with the owner of Castaneda & Garcia--”

“--a small firm based out of Colombia,” Q confirmed.

“--a firm that works for ARAMCO and other such oil companies and has run reports on AREVA. Most copies of the reports were destroyed. Ms. Kingston saw to their destruction on her husband's orders. She's an associate at C & G. But then she started reading one of the reports...” Arthur closed his eyes for a moment, trying to remember, “and she noticed something rather fishy--”

“Big Oil and a nuclear energy company?” Q muttered to himself.

“She saw a report written by NCP... all we know about NCP is that they make various parts for factories all over the world but what they actually manufacture seems to be...” Arthur shrugged helplessly, “...offline. There was some recall back in 2011 that AREVA ignored, especially in regard to the Olkiluoto reactor...”

“Olkiluoto is Finnish; why would the Finns stoop to such dishonesty?” Q continued to muse.

“We think there is something bigger going on,” Arthur said. “But we don't know what it is. We found out that Kingston was a target – probably framed by either her husband or her husband's brother, Charlie—Charles--we don't know. We don't have the means to find out anything more but if we do nothing, something catastrophic could occur.”

Delgado started chuckling. “You mean a threat to mankind.”

Arthur scowled. “It's a possibility.”

“This doesn't make sense,” Q stated, setting his laptop down and standing up. “Why would Big Oil lobby for nuclear energy?”

“What about the report on AREVA? The one that supposedly cannot be found?” Moneypenny said, skepticism arching her brows.

“You've got to be joking,” Tanner said.

“Yet you managed to find out about one of our agents and you knew his whereabouts.” Delgado's tone only revealed the slightest of warnings.

Arthur shrugged. “You left an easy trail for us to follow.”

Q, who had gone back to his computer, raised his head. “He keeps saying 'us' and 'we.' I don't think he means just himself and Ms. Kingston.”

“Eames. He mentioned a character named Eames,” Bond said. M nodded and spoke.

“Demand he tell us about a man named Eames.”

Delgado repeated the question. Arthur looked defeated.

“We're a specialty team. There are several of us: Patrick Eames, Ariadne Dellis... Mr. Saito, a chemical engineer named Yusuf Ahmadi and... myself.” 

“What do you specialise in?”

“Inception.”


	3. Chapter 3

Arthur Levine and Scarlet Kingston were put into separate holding cells until Ariadne Dellis and Patrick Eames were brought in. Ariadne had a very simple air about her. According to Q's reports, she was an American who graduated with honours from the Ecoles Nationals d'Architecture, a renowned architecture school in Paris, France. After that, she didn't seem to do much, yet her bank accounts were constantly well filled, receiving regular electronic transfers from Cobol Engineering led by a man named Jiro Saito. Ariadne lived in a pretty flat in southern Paris. Her name had been traced to several credit card accounts that had been used in a strange variety of countries, including several that would not be deemed likely holiday spots. Like Arthur Levine, there were some holes in her history though they were far fewer and much smaller. Looking at Ariadne, incredibly petite with a youthful, plain face, straight, dark brown hair, and a quaint style of dress, one would assume so little – so little as to let their eyes rove right over her. According to a few of her professors, however, she had been a fiery pupil who took command of projects with ease. And she was always described as 'ethical' and 'honest.'

So why was such an 'ethical' and 'honest' young woman associating with what could only be world class criminals?

Patrick Eames was the complete opposite of Ariadne and Arthur. Firstly, muscled and thick, clad in mismatched colours, with even scruff around his lips and on his chin, he gave off an air of being suspiciously unscrupulous. And secondly and more importantly, he was an Englishman. Eames was much more relaxed than either Ariadne, Arthur or Kingston. He was confident, but not overly so. He was quiet and observant, but feigned nonchalance and carelessness. Bond could tell that being in a holding cell had little impact upon Eames; the Englishman acted as though it were just another waiting room. Though probably not a spy himself, Eames was good with facial expressions. He masked his true emotions so well that Bond wasn’t sure if he was hiding behind a facade of casualty or if he truly didn’t care. There was not a sign of doubt or unease upon the man’s face.

What an odd group they made. The power dynamic had been unpredictable. Miss Dellis, though the youngest, was in charge. Levine was probably second in command. And Eames didn’t seem to give a flying fuck. There was a strange levy of control between Miss Dellis and Levine and another one of a similar magnitude between Levine and Eames. Kingston was the outlier. Bond could tell by her behaviour, the way she angled herself towards the other three, the way she waited for their permission via eye contact before she spoke, the way she crossed her arms over her chest and crossed her legs - all signs of being defensive and submissive - that she was not part of the original group.

But she knew what inception was.

The individual interrogations had completed earlier, around 1030. Delgado had become ruthless with his questions but found that most of the parties were more responsive when he treated them like human beings. So, the bad cop role didn’t fit here. Dehumanisation of the victims? Irrelevant.

Bond knew these were good people. Q had stockpiled folder and after folder on each of them and came to the conclusion that though they were involved in several illegal projects, none of the projects harboured ill intentions towards decent populations. Ariadne had admitted that they preferred to attack corporate fraud and political corruption than innocent civilians, hence how they became involved with the Kingstons, a prominent, and somewhat scandalous, English family.

“Since your history can be traced back a decade to when the United States was first experimenting with a technology that has now been deemed illegal, please share with us what that technology was and how you, Miss Dellis and Mr. Eames came to use it today.”

Arthur cleared his throat. “Well, it actually dates back further than that. The technology was founded in the 70s, enhanced in the 80s, and nearly perfected in the 90s. I was going to be the one to introduce it to the military as a whole, for, uh, various groups had already participated in beta studies involving the technology.”

“But the United States government clearly shut it down, destroyed all the equipment related to it, and declared it inhumane and illegal.” Delgado made a noise in his throat. “...that’s rich coming from the Americans.” He scanned over a letterhead document. “It was also declared unreliable... says here various tests proved to have no observable correlation to the patterns of human behaviour exhibited after constant exposure to the technology... Hm, this report is rather recent... 2006, interesting...“

“All the tests were sabotaged by an Army Ranger named Matthew Finch,” Arthur said.

Bond frowned. Now _that_ name had come up before.

“Is Finch still at large?”

Arthur swallowed. “Well, he was never caught, so... yes. He’s still at large.”

Q brought up his file and recited, “Matthew Romero Finch, ex-Army Ranger, born in 1943, went to Fairmont High School, graduated with honours and was accepted to CalTech--”

“When you say the tests were sabotaged, are you indicating that the technology actually does work? Why didn’t you inform the United States government?”

Arthur was now distinctly uncomfortable; shame leaking from the creases in his face. “Finch threatened to discredit me. I had risen high in the military, not necessarily in rank, but in respect and influence. I’d seen what Finch did to others like me--”

“Yet you stole the technology to commit petty thievery.”

“I didn’t steal--” Arthur protested and then he thought about it. “Okay, yes, I did steal it but it wasn’t to commit-- it wasn’t solely for petty thievery. My last partner, a man named Dominick Cobb, had been accused of murder when he and his wife had experimented with the technology last. Cobb made a fatal mistake that led to his wife’s suicide. But before she died, she planted false evidence, accusing Cobb of being abusive, of having killed her. Of course, she... should have been locked up in a mental institution but how was Cobb going to explain the nature of the technology in front of a court? That abusing it in such a way can screw up a person’s mind? A person’s perception of themselves and the world around them? So, he ran. Our last job together was under the supervision of an energy mogul by the name of Saito. Saito promised that he could clear Cobb’s name and that Cobb could see his children again. Which he did. And Cobb decided to retire.”

“Which leaves Ms. Dellis in charge?”

Arthur nodded. “She has a natural talent. She picked up the technology faster than any of us ever did. And she’s a better and... more willing... leader.” He smiled in her direction. Bond gazed between the two of them from behind his wall of glass. There was some sort of dynamic between those two as well, though it was less power-oriented and perhaps... affection-oriented?

“Tell us about inception.”

“Well, I suppose, in order to understand inception, you must first understand extraction.”

Delgado nodded his head once.

“The idea of the technology is that we use the realm of dreams in order to gather information.”

Everyone in the room zeroed in on that statement. Even though no one had been talking except Arthur, there came a sudden, blanketed silence. 

“Are you finding anything, Q?” M asked.

He shook his head. “I can’t hack the NSA.”

“You hacked the Pentagon!”

“Yes, _four years ago!”_ Exasperation. “Technology has changed since then and security precautions were put into place simply because of my success! Unless you wish to buy me a quantum computer, I can’t hack the NSA. Besides, it’s the CIA we’d want. Are you encouraging me to breach an ally’s trust?”

Bond knew a lie when he saw one and stored it into the back of his mind for further use. M pursed his lips at the assuming question but the diversion tactic worked; he turned his attention back to Delgado and Levine.

“You said ‘the realm of dreams’?”

“Yes. The art of extraction is the ability to gather information from inside one’s dreams.”

“Okay, what is this mystical bullshit?” someone muttered. There was some additional murmurs of agreement.

“Dreams? Dream interpretation? Are we really wasting our time with this?”

“We should just cut them loose. Fine them. Deport them. Get rid of them.”

“But they know about one of our agents. How did they come across that information, I wonder?”

Delgado coughed. “..and inception is?”

“Implanting an idea within someone’s mind in order to change them,” Ariadne said, speaking up. Delgado leaned back in his chair and glanced towards the spectators, a sign that he had already dismissed Levine’s credibility. Unfortunate, really, because the idea of a nuclear energy conspiracy, though cliche, was simply fascinating. And Bond had been ready to spring back into motion since he arrived in London two days ago. Every bit of his muscles were coiled with tension and now the hope of being assigned another mission so soon was seeping out of him.

“I can prove it to you,” Arthur said. “ _We_ can prove it to you.” Eames snorted derisively.

“Can you?” Delgado’s eyebrows disappeared into his hairline.

“We can, but it will take a, ah, certain level of trust...”

“We have no real way of recording what happens when we enter the mind. It’s sort of a... see-it-for-yourself-type ordeal,” Ariadne persisted.

“So, you’d need one of us to go with you... into this fantasy world. Am I correct?” Delgado’s tone was professional but there was a tinge of scorn nudging right below the surface of that professionalism.

“Dream world,” Ariadne said, blushing a little, though she put on a splendid determined face. There were absolutely no hints than any of them were lying or making things up. No idle scratching or twitching, no sidelong glances, no flaring of nostrils or dilution of pupils. Anything these four did was out of sheer nervousness for their own safeties. Bond could sense this, and perhaps a few of the others could, too, for there was much hesitation. Either they were such fantastic liars or, the more likely of the two possibilities, what they were saying was the truth. 

Bond leaned over to Q and whispered, “Now would be a great time to hack into the CIA.”

Q met his gaze. “Couldn’t we just call them?”

“Oh yes, wouldn’t that be marvelous? ‘Why, hello, Mr. Morell, my name is James Bond, an agent for MI6. Would you happen to know anything about extraction and technology involving dream worlds? No? That’s lovely. Good day.’ You don’t honestly expect them to tell us the truth, do you?” Q was a show-off; he enjoyed challenges and dangerous territories. But since his first mission, in which he allowed a criminal mastermind and ex-MI6 agent to hack into MI6’s internal systems, he’d been having a hard time compromising his desire to show off his skills and his desire to not mess up again. 

Q scowled. “We could put forth a proper request--”

“Do you know how long that could take? We need answers promptly.”

“I really don’t think I should--”

“Look a gift horse in the mouth, I understand, but, really, we don’t have time to waste.”

Bond gave him a ‘so-what’s-your-decision’ look. Sighing, the distressed Quartermaster ran a hand through his hair, took off his spectacles, rubbed them clean again, and placed them back onto the bridge of his nose. Q knew he would have to set aside his own discomfort; he had known all along what he would be getting into when he declined a position at the Pentagon to work for the SIS. Bond may not be his superior, but he did have more experience in the world of espionage, even though Q was still reluctant to admit his importance.

“All right,” he announced, staring around at Tanner, Moneypenny, M, Sawers and the rest. “I’ll find proof for the existence of the dream technology. It’ll take me... at most... 24 hours. And I’ll need to talk to them.” Q nodded at Ariadne, Arthur, Kingston, and Eames.

M’s jaw worked as he came to a decision. “All right, Q. 24 hours.” Q glanced at Bond. “You better hope this will be worth it.”

Bond grinned. “It’s _always_ worth it.”


	4. Chapter 4

_Swansea, Wales, 1990_

_“Huna’n dawel, heno, huna, Huna’n fwyn, y tlws ei lin; Pam yr wyt yn awr yn gwenu, Gwenu’n dirion yn dy hun?  
Ai angylion fry sy’n gwenu, Arnat ti yn gwenu’n llon, Tithau’n gwenu’n ôl dan huno, Huno’n dawel ar fy mron?”_

_A petite woman sat upon the edge of a simple cotton bed and her tender fingers stroked the ringlets of hair of a little boy curled upon his side and fast asleep. Beside the sleeping boy, curled up in her own bed, was a little girl, almost identical except for the long, brunette locks that cradled her face. Both children had a smattering of freckles that danced across their noses. The woman smiled serenely at them as she continued to sing softly._

_A sudden slamming of a door jerked her out of the pleasant reverie and her blood ran cold. She quickly kissed the children and hurried downstairs to meet his inebriated wrath._

 

Present Day

Over the next 24 hours, both Bond and Q hardly slept. Bond paced his hotel room. Q sat, hunched up at MI6 HQ, pounding away at his keyboard between varied intervals of interrogation. He was in regular correspondence with a group of anonymous friends, two of whom he respected greatly despite their own flaws. Plague was consistent. Q highly suspected that Plague lived in the cyber realm and never left. As soon as Q pinged him a message, Plague responded almost immediately, as though he were waiting. Wasp was a bit more negligent when it came to reliability. But Wasp was the better hacker of the two. Q thought of himself as the best, but maybe he was just reassuring himself.

“What do you need?” Plague typed at him via a secure server.

“I need access to the CIA’s classified files,” Q typed back.

Wasp remained, predictably, silent.

“Maybe we could team up with theJester and Magik--” Plague began.

“No,” Q interceded, “this has to remain between as few people as possible. I trust you and Wasp.” The word ‘trust’ here was primitive in usage - Q would hardly put a lot of trust in computer hackers, especially those who sided with major hacktivist groups like Anonymous. Plague was prone to that. Wasp was more independent but also unreliable.

“I can guarantee entry into the CIA within the next five hours,” Wasp said and maybe it was Q’s imagination, but Wasp seemed to be laughing at him. “What are you looking for?”

The Quartermaster hesitated. How much was safe to reveal?

“I need to know about any technology that had been banned before the year 2006 and preferably after the year 1975. I also need to look into AREVA and NPC.”

“The French energy conglomerate?” Wasp inquired. 

“The very one.”

“All right.”

Wasp disconnected.

Q said good-bye to Plague and went to work. After all, he figured, three heads were better than one.

Meanwhile, James Bond paced his hotel, glancing out of the bay windows every so often to gaze at the busy city before him. Stability, sordid yet necessary. A stability that James admired, perhaps even longed for for himself.

A solitary knock was heard upon his suite door.

“Open up; it’s me,” came that pleasant, soothing voice Bond always enjoyed hearing.  
He peered through the peephole, smiled at the face he recognised, and opened the door.

“You’ve been brooding again,” said Eve Moneypenny, giving him a searching look. “May I come in?”

“Please.” Bond stepped aside and closed the door after her. “Care for a drink?”

Moneypenny surveyed his suite. The ill colour on the walls. The plain king sized bed. The poorly panelled bar off to the left. “This is cheap, even for you, Bond,” she said and stepped behind the bar. She filled a glass with water and ice cubes and offered it to him. “I don’t think you should be drinking.” 

Bond held up a small glass filled with golden liquid. “Too late, I’m afraid.” 

“Ah, what a shame.”

She glided over to one of the beige armchairs and sat down. Bond sat on the edge of the bed, looking at her. “The only redeeming quality to this suite is its view of the city.” She shifted her gaze back to his and Bond found himself surveying the floor with a vague disinterest. This was going to end up being one of those talks they always had, the kind that dug too deep too fast; the ones where Bond couldn’t hide behind 007. Hell, he couldn’t even hide behind his own name, a name that had come to define him in such extraordinary ways. A name, he felt, he didn’t live up to. He didn’t deserve.

Eve learned forward, resting her arms on her knees. “James... James, where is your mind right now?”

“Inception,” Bond responded.

Eve frowned. “Referring to what Arthur Levine was talking about?”

“I could have used it, you know,” he said. “That technology. If it exists. I could have really used it.”

Eve sat back again. “You’re thinking about her.”

Bond stood and began to pace. “I’m thinking about everything. When I am at rest, I am never _truly_ at rest, Eve. You know this.”

“Do you believe them?”

There was a moment’s hesitation. What _did_ Bond believe? What did he _want_ to believe? _What did he feel?_ He was torn up about it. A big part of him disdained the idea that one could enter another’s mind and fumble around with their thoughts. But the way Arthur and Ariadne had gone into detail about it earlier, about using the drug somnacin, the layers, the use of a kick initiated by a musical countdown... Arthur had discussed in detail about one of their earlier projects involving Fischer Morrow, a former energy conglomerate that had played dangerously close to monopolising the entire world’s energy market. Robert Fischer, the son of the former CEO, had been about to enter the world stage as the most powerful man on the planet. But one day, he decided to break down his father’s empire and retire to Nantucket to become a small town landscaper. He married an Italian woman he had met while on vacation in the Maldives and the two were already expecting a child. Bond remembered reading the headlines with a sense of surprised disappointment.

What if the technology _did_ exist? That would mean that MI6 failed him. Surely, such technology would have been known to them? Especially technology that had existed for the past four decades? If it did exist, it would mean that Bond could have had the chance...

He shook himself out of his thoughts; their darkness lingered in his words. “It’s not about belief, Eve. It’s about reserving judgment until a final verdict is passed.”

“Q seems to think that it’s worth looking into.”

Q also doesn’t understand what it means to leave the past in the past, Bond wanted to say. But he knew he couldn’t. It wasn’t Q’s fault that the past had been dug up so coldly.

“I’m awaiting Q’s report.”

Eve nodded, like she understood everything Bond didn’t say.

“Your last six missions have been spectacular,” Eve said, as though it mattered.

“Are you giving me permission to fumble the next one?”

She took his hands in hers when he came close enough. And he stopped his pacing to look down and away.

“I’m telling you not to be so hard on yourself.”

“Is that what you told yourself after you shot me?”

She smiled and rolled her eyes but he felt better, as she knew he would. When she left, a part of the tension crept back into his body.

_Swansea, Wales, 1993_

_There was no more fear in the woman’s breast as she sat in the pew, watching her son sing a glorious and familiar chorus. The old bastard was long dead; choked on his own saliva during a drunken rage three years prior. A sense of self-satisfaction filled this lonesome woman sitting on the oak bench. She had won. She had succeeded and she had broken free._

_But a part of her remained forever broken. And at home, her daughter cowered in the darkness, tears having dried up a while ago. The young girl, with straggly, wavy brown hair, and those bright freckles - more pronounced now that her skin had paled - clutched her knees to her chest and even when the neighbour came over to check on her, she never came out. She pretended she didn’t exist, that she was a ghost, invisible to the outside world. The neighbour was an intruder on her well-deserved punishment._

_Wiry and limber, the boy stood in the choir, his plaid button vest causing him to sweat a little. But he stood proudly, for his mother smiled at him from the audience, a smile she also held for the daughter she imprisoned._

_And he sang his heart out._

_“Gwena’n dawel yn fy mynwes... Ar yr engyl gwynion draw!”_

 

Present Day

It was nearly midnight when Q had everything he needed. Wasp had reported back an hour earlier, just as he said he would. Plague also sent him a few encrypted files that he had discovered. Q compiled all three documents into one, edited it, formatted it, and then shut off his laptop.

He went into one of the bathrooms and masturbated the tension and the aches in his muscles away. He thought of nothing as he did so. When he finished, he cleaned up and took a nap on a couch in one of the spare rooms.

“Important things come in threes,” he mused to himself when he awoke and he spent the next three hours adding in his own commentary along with quotes from Levine, Dellis, and Eames to the report. Kingston’s words wouldn’t be as reliable; he had known all along that she was merely a bystander, not an expert. It was coming upon 0600 when Q decided he could use another nap.

Sprawled out on the couch beneath a mylar solar blanket, Q’s thoughts drifted into dangerous territory. Complex algorithms mixed with encrypted emails and bodies made up the subjects of the artistic canvas of his mind. Gradually, however, he fell into a peaceful slumber.

Unknown to himself, Bond’s mind also wandered dark corridors when it lay at ease. He was on a mission in Chengdu, chasing a man with no face but then everyone had no face. And he was about to lose the man and only kept on his tail because he memorised the clothes the man was wearing. But that, too, became futile because all the other people changed into the same clothes. And Bond stopped, lost in a crowd of people who all looked exactly alike and then they were falling away from him.

And he fell faster and faster, his heart on fire with pain, and crashed into icy water. Arthur’s words came back to him in an eerie echo, “We can change an entire person...”

The elevator was there, sinking down, down, down and Bond was trying to rip it open and she was there, holding his hands, willing him to stay, to let her go and she let all the air out of her lungs and her body became limp. Bond knew he could have used extraction to save her life. The technology had been there, like a glowing key just outside his reach. The key belonged to the elevator’s door and if he had just unlocked it in time, he could have saved her--maybe he could _still_ save her.

There was a bright light. The sun had risen. He was resting beneath sheets that radiated the same glow as the key. Beside him was a beautiful woman with humble features. His heart was racing -- had it worked? Could it--could it _be?_

She put a hand on his face and her touch was so real. “Don’t be afraid.”

And Bond reached out to touch her and found himself grasping for the darkness of his hotel suite.

His body ached as his chest heaved and his face was wet.

Bond stumbled out of bed and found that his legs were trembling. Staggering into the bathroom, he flicked on the light and doubled over the sink, dousing his face in cold water but the water only wiped away the tears; it didn’t wipe away the memories of the elevator.

Twenty minutes later, Bond pushed his thoughts into the back of his mind, dressed, and headed to MI6.

Everyone had assembled in the main computer room. Q had brought up a few documents on the projector. Still handcuffed, Arthur, Ariadne, Patrick, and Scarlet were seated in the interrogation room. They looked even more bedraggled and worn out. Eve opted for their cuffs to be removed and M reluctantly agreed. They were also offered glasses of water.

“I’ve been able to verify everything they’ve told us,” Q announced, highlighting various parts of each document in turn. That blanketed silence returned and Bond felt weak. “The dream- sharing technology, as it is called, was discovered in 1975 by a psychologist named Alexander Rodriquez. Rodriquez was rather known to be eccentric amongst those in his field. He was apt to perform odd experiments on his patients and was accused of malpractise several times. He was sued by... eight... of his patients for supposedly sexually assaulting them in a few of his, ah, experiments and many of his colleagues dubbed him the ‘Dr. Frankenstein’ of the psychology field. Which is a bit nice for my tastes, but there you have it. The military became interested in dream-sharing in the 80s and they took the technology from Dr. Rodriquez since he had not patented it yet. The idea is that you subject a person to a certain dosage of somnacin, putting them into a deep slumber. A car bomb could go off next to the person and they would still not wake unless their dosage ceased, of course.”

“How is somnacin administered?” inquired M.

“Via a device called the Portable Automated Somnacin IntraVenous Device... or PASIV, if you will. I have the manual here.”

Q pressed a key and a PDF appeared on the screen.

“‘...made of non-conductive titanium alloy... uses lithium iodide batteries.... participants should be in a comfortable reclined position for infusion, free from excessive light or noise, as these elements may be disruptive...’ I thought one couldn’t wake up from somnacin unless the dosage ceased?” Eve inquired.

“That is true. However, having an unstable external environment could alter the atmosphere of the dreams produced within the subject’s mind,” Q said.

“According to what I see here, this is a one-man operation?” M’s eyebrows were raised.

“You could do that, but it’s unadvisable. The dream realm could render unstable and if you are without supervision, you may never be able to awake. It can be very dangerous.”

“How?” asked Tanner. “You never go anywhere!”

“Ah,” said Q, smiling, perhaps a little condescendingly, “But you _do_ go somewhere. Where you go just happens to be within the confines of your mind. If you get lost in your own mind, you will never come back to the real world. And you become--”

“--a vegetable,” finished Bond. “I see. What happens in the dream world?”

“I’m getting there. Anyway, the United States military used the technology to train elite soldiers in combat. The idea is that the soldiers could get a feel for combat and what it’s like to kill... without actually having to _be_ in combat or without having to kill. The soldiers fight each other inside their own minds. They are put to the test, psychologically. It’s almost like playing a virtual reality video game.”

“Soldiers can fight each other? In the same dream?”

The mood in the room was of reserved excitement now.

“Yes,” Q continued, “that’s why it’s called ‘dream- _sharing_ ’ technology. First, you must have a subject. The subject is the dreamer, the one who opens their mind for exploration. They set the stage. The subject must be incredibly psychologically stable, at least, for military use. Then you have an Architect--” the way Q said the word made it sound like it deserved a capital letter, Bond noted, “--and the Architect’s job is to design the dream world.”

“Waitta minute, I thought the subject created the dream world? It’s _their_ mind after all!”

“Valid question, sir.” Q nodded at Tanner. “I’m getting there. So, you have an Architect, the one who designs the dream world, much like a video game designer. The Architect then teaches the design to everyone except the subject because the subject’s projections should never know the layout of the dream world. The dream world is like a maze. And the projections are... well, components of the subject’s subconscious.”

“What do the projections do? What do they look like?” Eve said.

“The projections take on the shapes of people in most cases. They represent the subconscious. They are also the protectors of the mind. If the subject senses invasion, the projections attack the invaders, like... white blood cells to a virus. If the projections know the layout of the dream world, they can readily attack those sharing the dream.”

“And if they attack you--”

“You could die. And when you die, you wake up. Hence why it was so safe for the military to use. You experienced the pain of death and the feel of death - that moment right when the world is about to end - but instead of the world actually ending, you just wake up.”

There was an appreciative murmur.

“Mr. Levine had said that the United States banned the technology. Called it unreliable.”

Q nodded. “Mm, yes, sir. The problem was that it could be easily sabotaged. Especially, if the subject was not psychologically fit. Soldiers started becoming addicted to the technology. Many had projections that manifested into strange animals that attacked the other dreamers at will. There were a few suicides... It was a catastrophe, really. So, the technology was put onto a back shelf.”

“So, you have the subject, the dreamers, and the Architect... “ Bond counted off on his fingers.

“You also have the Extractor. Ms. Dellis had mentioned a former partner, Dominick Cobb. He was a world-renowned Extractor; the _best_ in the world. He could break into anyone’s mind and steal their deepest, darkest secrets.” Q grinned, apparently enjoying himself very much. Bond had to admit that the idea was a bit overwhelming. Imagine all that could be accomplished without ever having to truly leave the room!

“In more advanced projects, the existence of a Pointman and a Forger are often necessary. Arthur Levine specialises in gathering the details necessary to complete a project. He gathers the background information on the subject, studies the subject’s desires and fears, their... beliefs. Basically, the Pointman is in charge of laying everything out. He decides the weapons--”

“Weapons?” Eve echoed. “But, this is all fake; it’s inside the mind--”

“To ward off the projections,” Q continued as though he hadn’t been interrupted. “The Pointman is in charge of all the nitty gritty details so to speak. The Forger, which seems to be Eames’s specialty, is... the spy. He takes on the guise of anyone close to the subject. He gets close to the subject in the dream world and tempts them to reveal the location of their secrets. Then the Extractor goes and fetches them.” Q paused for a moment, thinking and then added, rather delightfully, “Or the Extractor can plant an idea inside the subject’s mind instead. Like with the case of Robert Fischer, Jr.”

“He ended up breaking apart his father’s empire,” M said.

“Yes. Exactly. The idea that was implanted was just that, ‘I want to be my own man and do things for myself.’ But the problem was that he always needed his father’s approval so the true core of the idea ended up being Fischer Sr. telling Fischer Jr. to be his own man. Thus... making it ... an emotional sentiment.”

There was another silence.

“Seems like inception is much more difficult than extraction.”

“Yes, 007, it is. Much more difficult. And if Kingston can be believed, and I assure you that she can be, we might have to perform both.” Bond felt a shiver of anticipation. _We might have to perform both_. 

“What did you find out about Kingston?” M said.

“Here.” Q grabbed a couple stacks of papers, neatly assorted into binders and handed one to each person in the room. “This is the Kingston report. In a nutshell, Kingston’s husband, James Terrance Kingston, is good friends with a man named Carlos Castañeda, who is one of the founding partners of C & G, a lawfirm based out of Colombia that investigates nuclear conglomerates around the world. It was hired by ARAMCO to run an investigation on AREVA, a French based company that has offices here in the U.K., the United States, parts of Africa and Asia. AREVA built the world’s largest nuclear reactor in Finland, known as the Olkiluoto-3 reactor. In December of 2012, AREVA halted further construction and forecasted a loss of €1.6 billion, part of which was due to the struggling recovery from the Fukushima nuclear disaster, though most of which can be attributed to the declining value of uranium mining in Africa.”

“But why are they halting production?” asked Eve.

“We don’t entirely know. NCP is a company that makes parts for AREVA’s reactors and the report filed by C & G states that there is something amiss there, but we don’t really know what it is. All we know is based off what Mrs. Kingston has told us. I tried to find copies of the report myself but there is nothing online, nothing on file electronically. If a report exists, it’s a hard copy. Which means, it could be anywhere in the world.”

“And could take years to find,” added Bond, sighing.

Q shrugged and nodded. “Yes. Which is why... extraction might be necessary here.” 

“And seeing as how global this is, we could have more than one Mark,” Bond said.

Q gazed at him for a moment, biting his lip and then said, “I think we can safely say that there _will_ be more than one Mark.”

The corners of Bond’s lips twitched. “We’re going to need some bigger guns.”


	5. Chapter 5

The next two weeks hardly afforded Q any sleep. Moneypenny helped get top security clearances for Ariadne, Arthur, and Eames. Kingston received a preliminary clearance. Yusuf Ahmadi, the Chemist (‘Chemist’ also being spoken with a capital letter) who worked with the Inception team, was brought in and he waited, rather anxiously, as Q completed his background check. Ahmadi had been involved in a few illegal drug cartels across India and Pakistan but other than that, he was fairly clean. He had graduated from the University of Madras back in 2001, top of the class. He majored in chemical engineering and psychology. He met Dominick Cobb on the mission involving Cobol Engineering and Fischer Morrow but Ahmadi had heard of Cobb’s exploits years before then. Ahmadi was a good friend of Eames and had worked with Eames on several extraction missions. He was a humble man, one who lived simply, and his beliefs were an eclectic mixture of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam. He married once but his wife died from ovarian cancer and since then, Ahmadi had taken a vow to never marry again.

Q was able to clear him almost immediately but Levine’s, Dellis’s, and Eames’s clearances took the entire two weeks. Arthur was accompanied by three MI6 personnel while he picked up the materials needed for dream-sharing; he had left them sporadically across the globe and by the end of the week, Levine had distinct circles beneath his eyes.

Ariadne, Arthur, Eames and Kingston were put up in cheap hotel rooms, all bugged. Eames had spent an entire day attempting to locate and remove all the bugs when his mobile rang and an unknown MI6 personnel said, “Every time you remove a bug, it will be replaced the very next day. And really, Mr. Eames, our surveillance is not limited to bugging. Good day.”

Eames gave up after that.

MI6 came to a truce with Cobol Engineering; Saito would provide the majority of the funding and Cobol Engineering would be allowed to continue as it is. Q enjoyed the power play between the SIS and a man of such influence like Jiro Saito. It fascinated him how one man could wield such power over the SIS - they had come to a stalemate before the truce had been agreed upon. Saito stated he harboured no ill feelings towards MI6 and would gladly provide the funding for such a project. After all, it indirectly involved the future of his company as well. Such deals were tricky to make and should the deal come to public light, MI6 would be under the worst scrutiny it’s been under in decades.

At the end of the two weeks, everyone was exhausted. Bond was restless and anxious. And M had hinted a possibility of needing to bring in the other 00 agents.

This would be the largest mission MI6 had ever taken on.

Moneypenny, M, and Sawers were back in the main office conducting the operation via an encrypted programme Q constructed called Trapez0id. It was much like Skype in a sense but allowed for more improvisation and security. Ariadne opted to be the Architect; Arthur would play the role of Pointman, Bond would be the Extractor, Eames the Forger, and Yusuf the Chemist.

“You’re good at extracting information in the real world, no?” Arthur asked Bond one day. Bond gave him one of the strangest looks and Arthur hurried on saying, “Of course you are. Well, in the dream world, you’re going to need to be even better. The dream world is much more unstable than the real world and if you make a mistake, it could render the whole dream to collapse and wake up the subject to what’s going on.”

“You said the technology was thrown out,” Bond said. “If that’s the case, why was Robert Fischer’s subconscious trained to fight extraction?”

Arthur avoided his gaze as he unpacked the PASIV and set up chairs. “We believe Matthew Finch had something to do with that...”

“You _believe?”_

“Look, Finch is just as slick and just as careful as any of us here.” Arthur spoke with vehement annoyance. “He knows how to cover his tracks. We _believe_ he knew Fischer would be a target. Perhaps, he spied on Cobol Engineering, we don’t know. At least, not for sure. He knew that Cobb was better at Extraction than he was; he would have tried anything to prevent Cobb from succeeding and thus earning his way back into the United States.”

“What exactly did Cobb do to his wife? You said she should have been locked up.”

“That’s really none of your business and it’s nothing you need to worry about.”

Bond merely raised a cool eyebrow.

Ariadne entered the room and as she passed by Q, Q made a point to smile at her. She smiled back.

“All right. The first thing we need to do is choose our totems.” 

Q stood up.

“Totems are items that only you know,” he stated. Ariadne stared. He stared back. Ariadne rolled her eyes and made a sweeping flourish as if to say, ‘all right, fine, the floor is all yours.’ “For example, my totem is this statue of an Arabian horse. It’s a talisman I keep with me, passed down from my father. It’s unique to me. I know its weight, its feel. And there are no others with its exact weight and density in the entire world.”

“Mine is a bishop I carved myself.” Ariadne held hers out; a tiny brass chess piece rested in the palm of her hand. “Arthur’s is a loaded die.”

“What is the purpose of a totem?” Bond asked.

“To keep you--” Arthur began.

“Its purpose is--” Q began. 

They both stared at each other. Arthur sighed and Q continued, “Its purpose is to keep you tied to reality. For example, my horse talisman might gallop in the dream world. Or it might be a different colour. I can always tell I’m dreaming because of the behaviour of my totem. When I wake up, I know I’m in reality because my totem will be abiding by the laws of physics. The laws of the real world.”

“You’re implying that one can get lost in the dream world.”

“Of course, you can, Bond,” Q stated as though this were the simplest matter in the world. Bond silently cursed the young Quartermaster and his youthful arrogance. “Extraction -- and inception -- only work when the dream world feels real. You have to be _convinced_ of its reality. I’m sure you’ve been in a dream so realistic that you woke up and it took you a moment to realise that it had been only a dream, yes?”

Bond thought back to the nightmare he had earlier: the crushing pressure of the water, the weight of Vesper’s lifeless body in his arms, her hand on his face, the tonality of her final words... yes, it had felt real. It had taken ahold of his mind and strangled him with fear and insecurity and grief.

“Do you have yours picked out?” Q’s voice broke into his morbid thoughts. Bond nodded.

“Brilliant. Let’s get started. Arthur, is the PASIV ready?”

Arthur scowled but nodded as well.

“Places, everyone!”

Yusuf was busy fiddling with the IVs and checking dosages next to each chair. Bond sat down on one of the purple and white striped beach chairs and leaned back.

Ariadne sat next to him. Q sat on the other side of Ariadne next to Eames. Arthur double checked the PASIV, nodded at Yusuf and sat beside Eames.

“Let the games begin,” he said, leaned back, and closed his eyes. Yusuf went between each person and pricked them with the IV. Bond soon felt a cold liquid enter his veins and his eyes closed as darkness --

*******

“Spectacular weather, Captain!” Arthur called. Bond saluted back, standing at the steering wheel. The sun was high in the sky; the winds calm, the ocean a glittering cerulean. Dolphins jumped in and out of the surges created by the waves from the boat. The crew manned the decks. Q leaned over the bow, putting his arms out, yelling with joy into the winds. Eames sat off to the side, puffing on a pipe. He was the only one who looked in place.

Ariadne was dressed in white shorts and a red and white stripped tank top. She came up next to Bond., watching his face. He was utterly serene, concentrated on steering the shape. But his eyes took in everything.

And then suddenly, out of the water rose an iceberg and it melted and formed a tunnel. Bond and a few of the others shouted in surprise and the agent had to swerve the ship to the right in order to avoid crashing into the side of it. It glistened brightly in the sunlight and a darkness overwhelmed the boat as they went through the tunnel, the light on the other end leading them forward.

The temperature dropped twenty degrees and Ariadne started shivering. Q had stepped away from the bow and now he had his arm around her shoulders. But while he was looking concerned, she was grinning. Bond felt a strange unease spike up in his core. His muscles tensed and he stared around at his surroundings. Something was very wrong. Very, very wrong.

The tunnel wasn’t very long but it was stark only light with glittering chunks of ice that floated in the water. Towards the end of the tunnel was an enormous cavern, the ceiling unfathomable. Though there was no obvious source of light, it was just as bright inside the cavern as though they were sailing across the Sahara. There was a beautiful beach, with golden sands and palm trees and a forest that disappeared into the darkness of the cavern. Hidden amongst the trees, icy blue turrets of a castle could be seen.

“Are you creating this?” Q said to Ariadne, his eyes wide with childish delight. “Are we actually asleep?!”

Ariadne nodded. “I’m the dreamer.”  
  
“Who’s the subject?”  
  
Bond began to slow down the ship, calling for Arthur to adjust the sails to catch the wind.

With a groan, the ship halted about ten metres from the shore. It rocked gently, swaying in the beautiful blues. The water was so clear here that the ground was completely visible. Silvery fish and stingrays danced around them. Starfish, sea urchins, sand dollars and sea horses littered the water bottom.

Ariadne stood at the side of the ship and peered over. Then she lifted herself onto the ledge and dove into the water.

“Ari!” Q called, and all of them rushed to the side. She was doggy paddling away from the ship.

“Come on!” she beckoned them. “We have to get to the palace before it melts!”

Bond shrugged off his shirt and dove after her. The water was gloriously cool and his feet scraped a few seashells and the horde of stingrays circled him before disappearing into the depths behind him. Eames, Q, and Arthur resurfaced several metres away. Eames was a powerful swimmer and he was the first to reach the shore where he stood, his hideous tree-trunk brown overcoat draped over his arm, his loafers in his hand. Arthur was suddenly wearing palm tree patterned swimming trunks. Q didn’t change and when he staggered onto the beach, he looked satisfied, despite his bedraggled appearance. Somewhere along the way, he had lost his glasses and his hair was plastered along his skull. He seemed genuinely interested by the environment. He kept glancing around searching for the source of light and found that, perched on top of columns of rock, there were enormous, pyramid-shaped crystals. These crystals captured the little sunlight filtering through crevices in the ceiling of the cavern and bent the rays in all directions. _Fascinating,_ he thought.

Bond dug his toes into the sand, relishing the softness. It was unlike any sand he had ever felt before. The top layer was comfortably warm but the deeper layers felt like cool mist over his feet.

“We should probably go that way,” Ariadne pointed towards the castle. “I want to explore it.”

Ariadne plowed through the sands and into the tropical forest, with Q, Bond, Arthur, and Eames at her heels when Bond’s foot struck something hard. A jolt of pain shot through his leg.

“What the--”

He glanced down and saw the edge of an iron grate. He stared at it in disbelief, wondering why--how--it could possibly be--

No--it couldn’t be--

He dropped to his knees by the grate and began to dig all around it, slowly unearthing was seemed to be part of a large, old-fashioned elevator.

_No. No, this can’t--_

“Mr. Bond, come on,” said Ariadne. “We need to get to the palace.”

James Bond stared at the elevator, his heart pounding so painfully it was difficult to breathe. How could this be here? Why _now?_ Why _here?_ Why in this place of solace and relaxation? If he dug deeper and completely unearthed the elevator, would he see her? Would she just be bones?

Ariadne had her hand on his shoulder. “Mr. Bond, we really should get going...”

He became aware that everyone was looking at him. “Don’t you see--?” he pleaded, indicating the elevator.

Q and Ariadne exchanged a glance. “007, we have much work ahead of us. We can investigate at a later time.” Q knew what Ariadne was trying to do.

They didn’t see what he saw. To them, it was just a bunch of rusted iron bars, nothing of significance. Slowly, Bond stood up.

“Of course,” he said, moving his feelings into the back of his mind. One must always compartmentalise one’s emotions. Now was not the time to remember. Now was the time to focus. Resolution took over. He wiped his face clean.

They all followed Ariadne to the chilly palace entrance. Part of being a spy is about being able to compartmentalise oneself. Bond has to divvy up all aspects of himself and put them into different containers. His love life goes in one place. His guilt goes into another. His grief filled another container. His social life goes over there. His desires go over there. His hopes share space with desires and social life. And so on, so forth. Everything has to be put away when the time comes. All the drawers need to be filled appropriately and then pushed back into the dresser so he can put on a face of stone and continue the mission.

Without this ability, Bond would have been destroyed, utterly annihilated, before he even set foot in MI6 territory. He would have been eaten alive. And when someone comes along who knows the password to these drawers or has the key to some of the vital compartments, Bond treats them with wariness. They are a security risk and all precautions must be taken.

Until he completely falls apart.  
  
He allowed this to happen to himself once.  
  
He refused to let it him to himself ever again.  
  
The trudge through the forest was a short but difficult one. Bugs buzzed in small clouds. Birds chirped ominously. They had to clamber through muddy paths and push aside thorny leaves and low hanging branches. Every now and then, some large creature would be seen slinking in and out of sight. Several times, they had to climb over fallen trunks almost two metres in height. Ariadne was purposely not messing with the landscape this time and when they reached the castle doors, it wasn’t soon enough. They entered, their bare skin prickling with goosebumps with the contrast of hot and cold air.

Q had stopped.  
  
“What’s wrong?” Ariadne asked.  
  
Q, who had been the last one to enter the palace, looked behind him into the jungle. “I think there is something in there,” he said quietly. “I feel as though we’re being watched. That feeling becomes more and more intense with... every step I take.” 

Ariadne smiled. “Come on. We have exploring left to do.”

Workshops work better in smaller groups. Ariadne knew she should have just taken Bond in with her. And perhaps Arthur, too, just for a second opinion. But having Q and Eames around made things more complicated. The only one unaware of being in the dream world was Bond and Ariadne had no real way of telling Q to behave naturally so as not to alert Bond to the physics of the dream reality. Q, after all, had done his research - he knew that he’d have to face death soon. The strange presence he had felt in the jungle would only become stronger the more Ariadne changed things. She had built the tunnel. She had built the cavern. And she had placed the palace, a palace made entirely of ice, in the middle of an unlikely location.

Soon, they would all be at the mercy of Bond’s subconscious.  
  
And then they’d be torn apart.  
  
Ariadne glanced around at the others, noting the varied states of apprehension. As always, Eames was the only one who seemed unimpressed by the whole ordeal. His expression only changed to mild interest when Ariadne began to melt the palace.

They entered a grand hall, with an icy aisle lined on either side with glacier sculptures of women.

Bond looked at each of the sculptures with renewed interest and another tremor rippled through him. Each of the sculptures had a familiar way to them: smoothly curved cheekbones, humble lips, feline eyes, soft supple hair...

No. She wasn’t supposed to be here, too.  
  
“No, no,” Bond whispered, whirling around, nearly slipping on the rapidly melting floor. Ariadne and Arthur stared at Bond as the faces of the sculptures began to meld off and into puddles on the slushed floor. The noises from the jungle were increasing.  
  
“We’ve got to leave,” Bond said. The melting was getting faster now. “Quickly.”  
  
The group tried to hurry back towards the door. Bond tried to ignore the way the sculptures still seemed to stare at him despite them no longer having faces. Disgust and horror threatened to choke him. They ran through the sludge, their footsteps making nauseating squelching noises. Q was shivering, Ariadne couldn’t keep her teeth from clattering. The rumbling from the jungle was getting louder, so much so now that it seemed to be coming from all around them.

They just made the door again when the palace collapsed in an icy, watery explosion, wiping them off their feet and into the depths of the jungle. Mud splattered up all around them. Trees groaned under the weight of the water that was carrying them back towards the cavernous lake. The jungle was on fire. And hordes of shapes were pouring out from between the trees, trying to follow them.

“Look!” Q gasped as the group was dunked into the lake. Speed boats were coming towards them and Q didn’t need glasses to be able to tell that the men seated in these boats were armed with automatic rifles.

Bond knew they only had once chance. They had to get back to their boat.  
  
“Back, back, back!” he ordered. “Swim parallel to the shoreline!”  
  
Even though Ariadne and Arthur had experienced the dream world hundreds and hundreds of times before, no amount of experience could stop their hearts from racing and the panic rising up in their throats. The fear they felt was genuine and it was striking them hard on the inside.

Bond reached the boat first. But not before an arrow whizzed over his head. “Climb aboard, climb aboard!”

A rope ladder had appeared on the side. Arthur, slender and agile, was up it first, with Ariadne on his heels. Bond shoved Q up and then Eames followed. Bond was at the wheel and they were switching the sails, turning fast, but the speed boats were already much too close for comfort and the shapes coming out of the jungle had melded into humans armed with bows and arrows and daggers and flaming torches.

“Projections,” Ariadne whispered, her face pale. She closed her eyes.

Q stared over the bow as both groups of people came closer. Bullets shot through the sails. Something behind the ship exploded causing the ship to quake, to rumble, to creak.

Arthur saluted Bond and stood in the line of fire. He was shot right in the head and--

“Levine?” shouted Q, looking around frantically. “Where did he go?!”

Murderous yells and screams surfaced as the boaters arrived first. They climbed aboard with more agility than a troop of monkeys. They had the entire group surrounded in less than fifteen seconds. Bond stood at the wheel, frozen. He counted more than forty. Grossly outnumbered his group was.. Only Eames seemed remotely calm.

The horde consisted of heavily bearded men with sun burnt skin. They wore rags that looked as though they were once modern clothing. Some foamed at the mouth. Others were covered in blood.

Ariadne was beginning to regret using Bond this way. The man was clearly unstable.

Bond looked around. Eames was nowhere to be seen. It was just him and Q and Ariadne. One of the projections stepped forward; a pretty woman with sleek, burnt sienna hair. She might have been nice in real life but here, in the dream world, she was cold and expressionless. She walked right past Bond, who instinctively shoved Q behind him, and up to Ariadne and kissed her forcefully before pressing the muzzle of a gun against her heart and pulling the trigger.

Ariadne disappeared.

 


	6. Chapter 6

Bond and Q both woke with a start.  
  
Q ripped off the IV, blood speckling the floor, and stood up immediately, nearly fell. He was breathing hard. “What the hell... what the bloody hell...” 

Bond couldn’t speak.

Ariadne was watching with a concerned expression on her face. She muttered something to Arthur who nodded and unhooked Bond from the IV. Bond massaged his wrist as he sat up.

“That wasn’t... that wasn’t real?” he asked.  
  
Ariadne shook her head silently.  
  
“Who were those... why was she...”  
  
Arthur knelt beside him and handed him a Mars Bar. “Eat,” he said. Bond took it, unwrapped it, and nibbled on it. Both Ariadne and Arthur left the room. Eames was standing off to the side, looking particularly amused. Q was still hunched over the table, trying to control his breathing. Ariadne confronted M immediately after that fiasco.

“How did it go?” asked M, though he could guess after watching the recording. He didn’t see the dream realm but he saw the result, how Bond and Q looked sickened from the experience.

“It was a complete disaster,” she snapped. “Part of it is...was... my fault.”  
  
“Your fault?”  
  
“Yes! For assuming that your best agent would be mentally fit for such a venture! I’ve been exposed to the minds of those with--with--with unresolved--baggage but I thought your spies would have been tested!”

M squared his shoulders. “007 _has_ been tested, Miss. And if you doubt his abilities--”

“Doubt?” Ariadne nearly shouted. “Doubt? There is no doubt, _sir._ James Bond wept over a bundle of fragmented iron. He nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw the sculptures that his own mind created. One of his projections, one of the things that exists in his subconscious, came after me. This is a repeat of the first project I ever took on and I nearly _died--”_

“You informed us that when you died in a dream, you merely woke up in reality.”

“This isn’t the same! If we bring Bond into this mission, he could endanger all of our lies simply by being present! If we go down the number of layers we need to go down in order to infiltrate the enemy, Bond could get us stuck in a timeless realm called Limbo!”

“Limbo?” M’s demeanor shifted from disdain to caution and surprise.  
  
“Limbo,” Ariadne repeated.  
  
“What is this--”  
  
“When--when you go down too deep, too deep into the mind, and you are killed, you could get stuck in a realm of the subconscious called Limbo. It’s the part of the subconscious we’ve never been able to study. It’s a part of the mind that we can’t reach consciously. Once you’re in Limbo, it’s almost impossible to get you out. And you are stuck down there. Your mind is alive in a world that has no beginning, no ending, no _history._ But your body becomes a vegetable. Your mind could be stuck down there for ten years, twenty years worth of dreaming, and your body will only age weeks, months. It will feel like an _eternity._ And rescuing you? Is nearly out of the question. And I will not jeopardise this mission because you chose the wrong agent to represent you!”

“The wrong agent?” M raised his voice. “The _wrong agent?_ Bond is the longest standing 00 agent we’ve had in a long time, Miss Dellis. His success rate is the highest we’ve seen. His loyalties are infallible. And you dare question our choice? James Bond has been on this planet twenty years more than you have, young lady, and he has sacrificed his entire life to serve the SIS and Her Royal Majesty and you _dare question our choice?”_

Ariadne pursed her lips. She knew she should back down. But what she had seen in that workshop had frightened her.

“How much do you value 007’s life?” she asked.  
  
“Value? How can you expect me to place a--”  
  
“Do you value his life over the future of humankind?”  
  
M glared. “What kind of question is that?”  
  
“The only question that matters.”  
  
“No. I do not value anyone’s life over the future of humankind.”  
  
Ariadne breathed out heavily through her nose. “Good. Because if you include Bond on this mission, you’ll not only kill him, me, and everyone else on the team, but you could endanger the future of the human race.”

“What makes you say that?”

She shrugged. “When dealing with nuclear energy, anything is possible. If Kingston’s worry is anything to go by, I say we have a lot at risk. And the trouble is... we don’t even know how much.”

“Bond is the only field agent we have available currently. You’re going to have to take the time to train him.”

“We may not have enough time,” Ariadne said.

 

_Hartford, Connecticut, 1995_

_“You know anything about computers, boy?”  
  
“No, sir.”  
  
A husky chuckle. “No need to call me ‘sir.’ This is the 90s! ‘Uncle’ will do. Here, lemme show you.”  
  
Eight megabytes of RAM, 400 MB of HD space, a processor as fast as 33Mhz and a 28.8k modem! His_ _eyes lit up and he ran his fingers over the screen and around the edges. “For me?”_  
  
 _His uncle nodded, grinning. “Want to play?”_  
  
 _The 10-year-old nodded excitedly. What a glorious instrument! By the end of the month, he could take the computer apart and put it back together in his sleep! He could already guess that such modems would become obsolete and he knew hard drives and RAM could include more space. He constructed his own motherboard by the end of second month and around the end of the year, he could code in Python, Visual Basic and Java. For Christmas, he bought his uncle an IBM with 4 GB of HD space, a futuristic video card and a jingle that played every time the computer was turned on, specifically customised by himself - something almost_ _unheard of in that day and age. He taught his uncle Windows and Linux and how to install a VMM, which he wrote in Python._

_Life was good for the boy. He had discovered a new world, a newfound happiness. He’d found a best friend he could count on and a world in which he was God._

 

Present Day

 

Ariadne entered the computer room. Arthur was running tests on the PASIV and replacing the IV tubes and needles. Q was sitting in the front of the room by the projector screen and he was seemingly very focused on his computer.

“Did you submit the report?” she asked.  
  
“To Moneypenny, not even thirty minutes ago,” Arthur responded somewhat tightly.  
  
“Did you write out a description of Limbo?”  
  
“Of course, I did. And all the mistakes you made, too.”  
  
Ariadne sighed and sat down on one of the recliner chairs.  
  
“You should have started with the cafe,” Arthur continued accusingly, still fiddling with an IV.  
  
“I wanted the agent to see inside his own mind.”  
  
“You wanted to see his projections.”  
  
Ariadne clenched her teeth. “I wanted to see if he was _sane!”_  
  
Both of their voices had risen gradually in volume and they turned to look at Q. The young Quartermaster was either so thoroughly engrossed in his work that he didn’t hear them or he was politely ignoring them.

“You can’t judge a man’s sanity by his demons.”  
  
“I can, too, if they put an entire mission at risk.”  
  
“You’ve dealt with this before and I’m not just talking about Cobb.”  
  
Arthur was referring to himself. He had to take a six month hiatus from inception and extraction work due to an event that struck home for him.  
  
“But you were wise enough to take a break to deal with his death,” Ariadne said. “I was also able to replace you temporarily. Bond is supposed to be the best of the--”  
  
“He’s still human.” Arthur’s voice had taken a dangerous tone to it.  
  
“MI6 agents are supposed to be the best of the best!” Ariadne finished over him. Arthur had done the research; he should know all of this already. This had been _his_ responsibility. “You brought him into a confrontation with his own subconscious with very little explanation and no preparation! What were you expecting?”  
  
“Bond always is capable of adapting; he’s supposed to be incredibly reliable and malleable-- that’s what W--”  
  
“That’s naive, Ariadne!” Arthur said, throwing his arms up in exasperation. “You brought two untrained people into a dream world. You started messing around, tossing around 007’s subconscious like it was a damn game! You tore straight into the darkest part of his mind; you played on his mental instability! _You_ screwed up!”

Ariadne stormed out of the room, Q’s watchful eyes following her out.

The Dream Team, as they joking called themselves, stayed out of the dream world. Bond was sent to Yekaterinburg to assist 002. He was only gone for two days and when he came back he, once again, ignored medical and slept in his hotel room for half a day before returning to MI6 headquarters. It had been a temporary relief - being back out in the field with Q’s disdainful orders vibrating in his ears.

002 reported back three days later. M opted for his retirement and 002 was soon replaced.

Ariadne and Arthur drilled Bond and Q on the ins and outs of the dream world. Bond felt like he was back in the military; listening to another boring prep talk or coming back for some R&R. Kingston and Eames sat in the back with Moneypenny, Tanner, and a couple others. They all took notes.

Ariadne used videos and maps to describe the layers of the dream world. Bond often found his mind wandering into dark places. There was even a moment when Bond thought about taking Ariadne out for dinner and possibly to bed afterwards but after observing Q’s behaviour around her, he decided to hell with it.

Bond longed to be back out, away from this psychological jargon and wishy-washy dream interpretation bullshit. He had seen enough. He was done. He wanted to find the villain and destroy him.

It was amazing how seven days could feel like seven years. Thoroughly trained in psychology and deception himself, he was not the least bit interested in a make-believe world that existed purely within the mind. Q’s interest was enough for the both of them and on the very last Monday, Bond left halfway through the lecture.

On Tuesday, Ariadne asked Bond to sit down in one of the chairs. She sat down beside him and Arthur hooked up their IVs.

“We’re going into the dream world?” Bond inquired needlessly. He was starting to doubt the point of his existence at MI6.

Ariadne looked at him and--  
  
“Waiter! Another, please?”  
  
The delicious smell of breads and pastries wafted through the air around them. People bustled by, intent on finishing their shopping. The languages they spoke were indistinguishable. Bond was dressed in a crimson and gold Comstock vest that overlapped a Sinclair Edwardian Club collared shirt. His sable brushed cotton trousers were complimented by a pair of obsidian Waukenfast leather boots. Ariadne was dressed in a simple white cotton blouse with a copper Marisol prairie skirt. There were two Ketland & Co flintlock holster pistols resting next to their plates. There was a belt around Ariadne’s waist which held a .32 caliber S & W and along the calf of her left leg was yet another.

The waiter arrived and poured them each splendid cups of Moroccan tea.

“The Master brought these back himself only a fortnight ago,” Ariadne said, nodding at the teabags.

“Marvelous,” responded Bond, sipping from his cup.  
  
“007, how did we get here?” she asked, the corners of her lips tilted upward surreptitiously.  
  
James Bond paused still holding the teacup to his face. “Well, we arrived from the... “ He frowned. “We came from the... We were just heading over...”  
  
She raised her eyebrows. “Don’t remember?”  
  
Bond scratched his temple. “No, I’m afraid I don’t.”  
  
She allowed a smile. “When you dream, Mr. Bond, do you ever remember the beginning?”  
  
“The beginning of the dream or how the events in the dream began?”

“The latter.”

Bond thought for a moment. “No, I suppose I do not. Where are you...”  
  
“Look around you and tell me what you see.”

Bond scrutinised her before perusing his surroundings. “The cobblestone is made of topaz, specially imported from India. The streets twist and turn like a maze. The air smells of baked goods and fresh produce. Probably from that open market across the street.” Bond jerked his chin towards a booth filled with carts of produce behind them. “We’re sitting in the outside parlour of the Arabian Nights Cafe... There is a group of Travelers practising an ancient form of levi...” Bond’s voice faded as his eyes widened, “...tation...” The ground began to vibrate.

He blinked, shook his head, and stared again. “This isn’t real.”  
  
Ariadne sipped her Moroccan tea. “No?”  
  
Bond shook his head. “No,” he repeated, more confidently. “This can’t be real. there is no such thing as streets made of topaz. And levitation is impossible or improbable or...”  
  
“It’s funny how the mind works,” Ariadne said. “But good job. Do you have your totem?”  
  
Bond’s hand went to his neck where Vesper Lynd’s love knot necklace had unknotted itself into a glistening golden rope wrapped gently around his throat. Ariadne felt for her bishop in her pocket and smiled when it melted into liquid in her hand and then re-solidified into the shape of a rook. The vibrations grew stronger and louder.

“When I was first learning about dream-sharing, Cobb brought me into a cafe. Cobb, though very good, lacked imagination. He, um... he believed that workshops, such as the one we’re in now, should be limited to realistic scenery. A city layout. A building. He believed all the laws of physics should be applicable. I found out that this wasn’t necessary. In dreams, physics don’t have to apply at all. The world does not have to be realistic in structure.”

Bond was pale. “I believed, for a moment, that I was actually a part of this world. My... mind was filled with random facts about this world. Facts I deemed to be true. To be...real...”

Ariadne nodded. “Your latest mission, the one where you went to Russia--”  
  
“How do you know about that?”  
  
“I--we--have our sources. The mission where you went to Russia, you killed the Mark in a museum that housed a Ketland and Co. pistol. Not of this caliber, I don’t think, I dunno. I’m not a weapon’s specialist. Just an Architect.”

Bond stared at her, smiling and shaking his head. “Just an Architect.”   
  
“Yeah... _just_ an Architect.”  
  
“An Architect of the mind.”  
  
“That makes it sound so much cooler than it is.”

Bond chuckled. “You create worlds and expect it to be glossed over?”

“Arthur was right,” Ariadne sighed, fiddling with her own pistol. “Don’t tell him I said that. But I should have started you off in this workshop. I’m sorry for what happened before.”

Bond gave a soft shrug, leaned back, and propped his feet up on the table. He stared at the world around them. It was beginning to fade, like someone had splashed water upon a beautiful, acrylic painting. “I can forgive you after this.”

“Well, don’t get too comfortable. We have a lot of work ahead of us.”   
  
“Work? No. This is _play.”_  
  
Ariadne drained her tea and stood up. “Come on. The dream is collapsing.”

 

When Bond opened his eyes, his body felt utterly relaxed and peaceful. Ariadne was sitting beside him and both were in their normal clothes. Arthur was standing by the PASIV, Q was monitoring their heart rates via his laptop and Eames was puffing on a cigar in the corner.

“That was exhilarating.”  
  
“That was my dream,” Ariadne answered. “Arthur, let’s go another five minutes.”  
  
Bond glanced at the clock and sure enough, only five minutes had passed. Arthur said nothing and soon, Bond felt any remaining tension seep away and his eyes closed...  
  
Ariadne was holding his hand this time as she turned on the spot. “Not terrible,” she

remarked. “You forgot one of the produce carts. And I think you changed the colours on the flags hanging over that building over there... are you colourblind at all?”

“I’ve never been very good at deciphering greens.”

“Ahhh, deuteranomaly. That makes sense. But overall, you did a pretty good job. You definitely remembered the topaz streets. And the people.”

“Who are the people?”  
  
“Projections of my subconscious.”  
  
“...your subconscious?”  
  
Ariadne nodded. “Watch.” She walked up to a pretty lady wearing a short-sleeved maroon dress that cinched around the middle. “Excuse me, madame.”  
  
The lady stopped, giving her an appraising look.  
  
“Can you tell me what one of my phobias is?”  
  
The woman looked haughty. “Why, of course, Ariadne. You have claustrophobia.”  
  
“Thank you.”

“Any time.” And the woman walked away.

“Pretty basic,” Ariadne said, shrugging. “The more secretive and deep the information, the harder it will be to obtain.”

“So, I created the dream... and...”

“And then I populated it with my subconscious. It happens automatically. You simultaneously create and perceive a dream world. The point of extraction and inception is to get into that process, right in the middle of it, cut it in two, and take over.”

Bond thought for a moment. “So, we work like a virus.”  
  
“No, _you_ work like a virus. I’m the victim.”  
  
“Pleasant.”  
  
Ariadne leaned against one of the buildings, feeling the cool brick beneath her blouse. “So?What are you waiting for? Start creating.”  
  
Bond frowned. “But I created this world already.”  
  
“Look at it this way: you created a stage. I filled the stage with actors and actresses. The

stage is already fully constructed. It has its laws, its designs. And the actors and actresses are already present. But say you wanted to change the layout of the stage... that’s what I need you to do now. My subconscious is already used to this world. Its physics. Its laws. What you need to do now is branch out from that, alter it so that my subconscious starts to notice.”

“But won’t the projections attack? Like they did in the first workshop?”  
  
Ariadne grinned, showing shiny, white teeth. “They may. They may not.”  
  
Bond meandered into the street, looking around at the buildings. “I can do anything?”  
  
“Anything.”  
  
As they walked, the cobblestone streets began to be laced with tiny cracks and from in between these cracks, sprouted patches of grass and flowers. Ariadne yelped in surprise as she had to sidestep a particular patch of the street because a small sapling had sprung up and nearly struck her in the face. Bond pulled her out of danger.

The buildings also cracked apart as wildlife took over. Saplings appeared all over the place, in windows and gardens and carts, sprouting out of peoples’ handbags and shoes and hair. And they grew faster and faster and taller and wider. The trunks melted into glorious rich reds as they shot up towards a sky was becoming a dark shade of indigo.

Ariadne stared around. “Redwoods?” she asked.

“One of my favourite types of trees,” Bond answered solidly. “I admire them for their vastness and the age and durability.”

“You like things that last.”  
  
“I like inanimate objects that last.”  
  
Ariadne scoffed. “Let me guess, you’d rather purchase a Westinghouse instead of a General Electric?”  
  
Bond smiled to himself, sidestepping a coyote den that had appeared in the thicket. Vines and strange blue ivy crept over the buildings, causing cracks and fissures to run through the fancy adobe and concrete.

“Well, I’ve always held a level of disdain for planned obsolescence.”   
  
“That’s funny because it’s in our blood.”  
  
“If you believe in God.”  
  
“Or biology.”

“Touche.”  
  
Bond wasn’t as clever in his creative destruction of the dream world; he also wasn’t slow to the uptake either. He was blunt and blatantly wanton and preferred to go as big as possible. He didn’t waver in his evolution. Ariadne’s projections had noticed immediately instead of slowly like Cobb’s. Of course, she had started off experimenting in Cobb’s world whereas Bond went straight for the kill.

The good thing about Bond was that he didn’t build entire places from memory; instead, he had taken an idea and expanded upon it, which was precisely the lesson in learning about dream destruction as well as dream building. Bond took his fucking sequoia trees and the feel of the humid atmosphere of the forests in California and let his mind wander. The projections, though aware of the changing of their world, didn’t outright attack - why? Because the dream held no recognition for Ariadne; she had never been to California. She couldn’t know what it felt like to place her hand against the bark of a tree that had been around for a thousand years. In fact, she had never ventured West of the Mississippi. But Bond had. He had sat beneath the shadow of trees that remembered a time before man. The way they whispered in the wind... the way they loomed up into the skies...

Ariadne was immensely curious. She gazed up in open-mouthed awe. Her projections were hesitant though some shot dirty glares in Bond’s direction. Where could she hide her deepest secrets now? In the roots of the trees? In the minds of the strange forest animals Bond created? When she had been in the workshop with Cobb, his projections had attacked her more readily because she had built places familiar to him, places that dug up the skeletons of his mind, similar to what she had done in the initial workshop with Bond.

Would something similar happen now? Or would her subconscious eventually adjust to the new world?

She felt they wouldn’t. Her own unease must have risen from the deepest part of her mind.

Bond’s entire body was tense. He could sense the anger and the annoyance that came from the projections. Their hostility was beyond evident and strangely contradictory to peaceful atmosphere of the forest. They clambered over fallen trees and through dense thickets and they bumped into Bond carelessly.

More and more projections leaked out from between the trees, some wearing loinclothes and vaguely resembling the ones who had attacked Bond and his group previously, but were cleaner, well-shaven. Less wild. The agent had already wrapped his fingers around his Ketland & Co pistol.

The grandeur of the city had now almost completely faded into the grandeur of the wild.

Bond couldn’t keep up with Ariadne now because the projections increased rapidly in number and began to horde him away. She was nearly invisible. Bond drew out the Ketland and aimed at the nearest projection. In that split second, he noticed a few of the projections wearing colourful scarves around their necks and he figured, if worse came to worse, he could grab one and wrap it around the trunk of one of the smaller trees and clamber up into the branches.

“Dream a little bigger!” Ariadne shouted, from somewhere off to the right. And that’s when Bond swapped out his Ketland for an AK-47. He fired into the crowd and projections vanished before his very eyes and he thought he might be successful in creating a path but then a dark-haired, snarling young man raised a scimitar--

Ariadne, who had surfaced nearby, saw the glint of the silver and blood splashed through the air and--

 


	7. Chapter 7

Bond was gripping the side of the chair, his knuckles white.

“So,” he said, forcing a calmness into his furiously beating heart, “that’s what it feels like to be decapitated.”

With instructions from Arthur, Q unhooked Bond and Arthur attended to Ariadne. “Well?” he said, gazing at the agent. “What happened? Are you all right?”  
  
“Of course I’m all right. It’s simply disorienting to die and live to tell the gruesome tale.”   
  
Ariadne jumped up from the chair as though she had just been resting underneath a gentlesun in paradise and went over to Q’s laptop and began typing up a report, much to Q’s annoyance. “How’d it go?” Arthur asked, safely disposing of the used equipment.  
  
“Rather well, surprisingly,” Ariadne said, straightening her shirt as she turned to face everyone. “Just sent M the basic report. Mr. Bond has quite a strong mind, that’s for sure.”   
  
“How could you tell?” Bond asked, raising an eyebrow.  
  
“You didn’t even bother experimenting.” Ariadne through her hands up in the air. “You went straight for the freakin’ destruction on the largest scale you could think of. That takes willpower and endurance.”

“That’s to be expected of 007,” stated Q and when Ariadne gave him a look, he rubbed the back of his neck to hide the spreading blush. “M wants to know if you still doubt him.”

“Doubt me?” Bond said in surprise. “You doubt me?”

Ariadne folded her arms over her chest. “I doubt everyone.”   
  
“Even now?”  
  
“Those were _my_ projections, not yours.”  
  
“Rather brutal, though, weren’t they?” he said.

Ariadne scowled. “Maybe I’m a brutal person.”  
  
Bond gazed at her sardonically. “I’d like to see proof of that,” he said, smirking.   
  
“Maybe you will,” Ariadne responded airily, but bright pink splotches appeared on her cheeks.  
  
“All right, all right, enough flirting you two,” interjected Arthur, looking mildly peeved. “We should all call it a day.

Meet back at 0500. It’s my turn to test the eminent Mr. Bond. Ariadne, you’ll work with Q. Yusuf and Eames will supervise. They’ve already been informed. Good night, everyone.”

 

_Hartford, Connecticut, 2002_

_“Congratulations, m’boy!” roared his uncle, waving the letter around in a happy dance before pinning it to the door of the refrigerator. “Massachusetts Institute of Technology on a full scholarship!”_

_The teen rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, erm, let’s not rub it in...”_

_But his uncle’s jubilation could not be soothed. That night, they had dinner with the neighbours and every other sentence out of his uncle’s mouth consisted of the words ‘nephew’ and ‘M.I.T.’_

_The seventeen-year-old could only force smiles and nod and shake hands because he couldn’t bring himself to tell his uncle that he didn’t plan on going or that if he did, it wouldn’t be for long. His ambitions rested outside of university and M.I.T. would consume the time he desired to spend on constructing programmes. His uncle had no idea of his previous endeavours into cyber security and he made sure never to mention just how far he had come since he built his first computer. What could he say? ‘Thank you, uncle, you’ve aided me in becoming the most dangerous person on the planet.’?_

_Such talents are dangerous and he had learned at a young age when it was wise to stay silent._

 

Present Day

When Q arrived home, his flat was fiercely cold.

“Shit, shit, shit,” he murmured, breathing hot air into the palms of his hands and rubbing them together as he peered at the temperature gage. If he didn’t get warm soon, his Raynaud’s would start acting up again and he really didn’t want to programme with numb fingers. Kingston had mentioned in one of her interrogation sessions that she had seen a copy of the report filed by C & G before the reports had been destroyed. He had zeroed in on his this piece of information because now that they knew about the dream-sharing technology, he was starting to think anything was possible: what if they could retrieve her memory of the report? What would they find out?

She had said that she didn’t read all of it. She had glimpsed the first page and thus came forth the names AREVA and NCP and so on and it probably wouldn’t be long now before she was sacked from her position, if not killed, if Big Oil truly was involved.

Would they need to extract data from Kingston’s subconscious? Would they even be able to find it?

Ariadne and Arthur had stated that extraction wasn’t usually multiple levels. It could be, but it was no more than two. Inception required more depth in order for an idea to take root and not be sniffed out by the subject.

Q scanned his thumb print and typed in his key fob code and logged into his computer. Wasp had sent him the latest codes for his programme called _Cellar Door,_ a secure shell tunnelling protocol - his version had been designed to give Q access to all the computer networks in the area via encrypted VPN connections. Therefore, nothing could be traced to him. If his VPN was ever detected, he could take it offline and it would disappear. He used this to keep an eye on activity within the entire SIS. He had a feeling that Sawers might know but nothing was ever said to him. In fact, to keep it even more secure, Q had constructed his own tower servers, which he kept in the guest room.

Shivering a little, Q made some Moroccan mint tea, grabbed a coke from the fridge, and sat down in front of his laptop. TheJester had sent him various algorithms in regards to handling the latest offensive programmes created by the Russians.

#include <vir.h>  
#include <string.h>  
int main(int argc, char **argv) {

char buf[6144] = { n };  
strncopy(buf, argv[1], sizeof(buf) - 1); printf(int)(buf);  
putchar(dev) (‘\n’);  
return(nada);

}

Over his tea, Q sighed.  
  
<stop>  
  
[[ŊỎ çȯɯǝ ṑȵ ỵṑữłƚ ƚỉķḛ ʈẖĭƧ.]] TheJester typed back.   
  
<one sho only>  
  
TheJester remoted in.  
  
[[ẘặƫçẖ]]  
  
And then the programme attacked.

[ shadow $ ] ./93*/<44rfm>/code DDD89%x%x DDDDbrrrrraa4444444444444444444444444444444...

<not impressed> Q said and he quickly typed in his own code. <now i have copies of your entire network> <location identified> <wut say u>

TheJester didn’t respond.  
  
<this b ur price for pretend attempting to hack my netw0rk> <stay 0ff> <not for u or that fiend L>  
  
[[:-(]]  
  
Q signed out. TheJester was good. Damned good, if truth be told. Though only a few years younger than himself, TheJester had proven himself a worthy opponent. His main doings, however, involved hacking government websites. Plague built machines. Cuffs. Gadgets. His location was somewhere in Scandinavia and he used to work for a security company where he constructed alarm systems and the likes. There wasn’t a single alarm system in the world that Plague couldn’t demolish if he so desired.

Hackers are solitary people, usually confined to their rooms. Sometimes, however, they do hide under a guise of sociability and Q, though he’d never call himself a hacker, had two best mates who were hackers, one deceased, the other living in Lambeth.

Magik was a kid with Aspergers who had dropped out of high school, moved from Florida to England, and spent the majority of his life sleep-coding, drinking, video-gaming and having sex with unattractive women. Q had met Magik on accident while on a date with an ex-girlfriend at a mall in Hartford, Connecticut. The girlfriend had been incredibly boring but very pretty and a good lay and she had been chattering about some clothes she wanted, when Magik phreaked his mobile (a Nokia). Q had reversed the phone phreaking, tracked down the kid, and threatened to tell the police. After that, bonding over beer and video games, Magik introduced Q to another hacker named Jonathan who had been placed under house arrest two years prior for hacking NASA and the DTFA (a branch of the United States Department of Defense). Jonathan wouldn’t hack anymore after his arrests, but he watched Q and Magik work.

In 2007, Q was close to finishing his degree at some local community college (he hadn’t gone to M.I.T. at all) when he was offered a position at Microsoft. It wasn’t substantial and Q hated every bit of it but it was a means to an end. His _real_ work consisted of projects completed outside business hours with Magik at his side. How poetic. Jonathan constantly warned them not to mess around, but neither man listened. Q’s targets became bigger and bigger. During his hours at Microsoft, he constructed the codes for Windows 7 and 8, but at home, he read information protected by Russian, Chinese, and American intelligence. He soon had two small condos of his own: one in Connecticut, the other in London. Due to Jonathan’s death a year later, Q slowed down in his antics.

Towards the end of 2011, he was offered a position at the Pentagon, whom he had hacked three years prior. On his way to drug testing, he was interrupted by a man akin to Mitt Romney and a woman with a very stern stare.

And thus began his career as head of the Q Branch of the SIS. He sold his condo in Connecticut and made his stay in England permanent, which made his uncle happy. And much to his exasperation, Magik moved to the U.K. right after him, though he claimed it was a coincidence.

Just last year, Q had received a 4 am phone call from one of Magik’s usual slaggish girlfriends; the poor girl begged him, through tears, to come over and calm Magik down. Begrudgingly, Q went and was entering his mate’s flat just as the then ex-girlfriend was leaving, raccoon-faced, mascara-streaked cheeks. A six pack went flying just past his head as the distraught woman left the flat.

“What a waste,” he had said as-a-matter-of-factly as the brown liquid rapidly seeped into the carpet. It took several tries, but in the end, Magik relaxed. Then they both decided to get outrageously pissed and Q found Magik between his legs, giving him an apologetic blowjob, and then they both had awoken with headaches that made their skulls feel as though Thor had taken Mjollnir to them.

These days, Magik’s flat was filthy, littered with soda cans, pizza boxes, and wrappers. Circuitry and server parts were scattered across the stained carpet in every room. There was also a stray fox that lurked in his flat at times. Q blatantly refused to use the loo whenever he was at Magik’s and tried to avoid the kitchen as much as possible, too. The flat was always stiflingly warm, even for Q, and it reeked of rotten food, piss, and cats.

When Q’s mobile phone rang at 0200, he knew it was Magik. There was a feel to the ring that always told him it was Magik. He never rang on a consistent schedule but when he did ring, it wasn’t surprising.

Q held his phone in his hand and stared at it with an air of disdain. Then he answered.

“Come over,” Magik whinged, without even a proper greeting. He was pissed off his own arse again, Q figured.

“No, I’m busy.”  
  
“No, you aren’t. You’ve got three hours.”  
  
Q scowled. “How the hell do you know that?”  
  
“Wasp.”  
  
“You have Wasp tracking me now?”  
  
Magik laughed lazily in his deep, throaty voice. “Come over, man.”  
  
“What do you want? I haven’t the time.”  
  
“I’ve got a cool code to show ya, bro. And.... and, and I’ve got someone you need to see!”  
  
“Send it to me.” Q rattled off an encrypted email address. “And I’m not interested in your one night stands.”  
  
“Not when you smell of MI6 dogs; I ain’t got the time to securitise shit. You need to come over.” God, he was so damn insistent.   
  
Q ran a hand through his hair. “I’ll visit you later this week. I’m really bogged down.”  
  
He hung up. Magik called sixteen times after that and sent him rudely obscene emails but Q ignored them.

 

At 0400, Q left to head over to HQ, his mind distracted.

With a cup of tea in hand, Q settled himself in front of his computer at MI6. M had arrived and Moneypenny was due later. Bond was already sitting at the table, looking shadowed and ominous.

Arthur and Ariadne moved as though they had slept fitfully - they swept the floors, organised the computers, set up a few more projection screens to monitor brain activity, laid out 3D models of entire cityscapes on a table by the far wall. Eames was leaning against the wall and Yusuf was watching apprehensively. Kingston was confined to her hotel room with 24 hour surveillance.

Q patched a network connection for 009 while Ariadne and Arthur finished the room.

“Q, you sit here,” Ariadne said, pulling out a ridiculously comfortable looking arm chair in a reclining position. “Mr. Bond-- over there--”

The last thing he heard before he went under was Yusuf saying, “Sleep well.”

 


	8. Chapter 8

It was a bright and sunny day in New York City, ladies and gents! Or, well, it _felt_ like New York City but really, it could have been any city in the world decorated with huge skyscrapers and LED screens. Parts of it felt like Shanghai. Others, Tokyo.

Ariadne explained the nature of the dream world about how it’s all about the _feel._

“How do we extract information exactly?” Q inquired, stamping his foot on the ground and nodding in satisfaction at the way the sound was rich and thick like in reality.

Ariadne shrugged. “There are a lot of ways. For example, you could talk to my projections. Sometimes, they’ll answer questions. If it’s top secret, we construct something secure in the dream world, like... a vault, or some sort of safe... last mission, we constructed a fortress, a castle keep if you will, surrounded by... every sort of security measure you could imagine. That was fun.”

Q thought about that for a moment. “And then you break in and steal the secret. Like in reality.”

“Like in reality. Though I think this is almost more dangerous... You can’t die in the dream world, but you risk alerting the Mark to what’s going on and then you can’t perform extraction again. At least, not any time soon. You have to wait for the Mark’s subconscious to settle down, but see, that’s a big problem, because it’s different for everyone and the subconscious never forgets. Never truly.” Ariadne looked around the dream world as though searching for some reassurance.

“It really is like a heist then.”  
  
Ariadne nodded. “Yep.”  
  
“Have you ever made a mistake?”  
When Ariadne looked at him, her doe eyes were very cold. “Have _you?”_  
  
Q uncharacteristically lowered his gaze. “Yes. On my first mission.”

“What did you do?”

The younger quartermaster faltered. “I...put the entire MI6 network at risk. Let us leave it at that.”

Ariadne raised a cool eyebrow. “And they didn’t fire you?”

Q barked a laugh. “No. I knew they wouldn’t.” _Yeah, right,_ he thought to himself. _I was scared shitless._

“Oh, get outta town.”

“No, really,” Q responded, chuckling. “I have access to all their information. If MI6 had sacked me, I’d be bought out by another agency, probably the Americans, though I hold no loyalty to them, and, see, the Pentagon is not as forgiving. If I mess up again with the United States or--or-- something else, I’d be put under incredibly high surveillance if not thrown into prison.” He was trying very, very hard to sound humble. 

“You declined a job at the Pentagon.”  
  
“Yes, I--” Q turned on her. “How did you know that?”  
  
“M,” Ariadne said swiftly, but a pink blush on the tips of her ears indicated she could be lying. “Look, we have to be able to trust each other.”

Q made a mental note to investigate M’s files later. He shrugged. “At the Pentagon, I’d be a tool for a government I have no stock in. Everyone knows about the American Imperialists. I’m a threat to their national security. I could expose the entire country. I won’t, of course, but that power is there. MI6 gave me a chance to get away from all of that. They gave me a leadership position. They believe in second chances. At MI6, I’m not really just a tool. I can make the calls. They trust me.”

Ariadne gave him a look. “You want their _approval?”  
  
_ Q laughed again, lighter this time, and Ariadne couldn’t help but notice how pleasant it was. “No! God, no. I want their _protection.”_  
  
“So MI6 offers you an entire branch. You get to be. You get to give orders. And you get protection. They must like you to trust you so much. You really are a dangerous man.”  
“Am I?” Q asked softly, hiding his delight at the recognition. He didn’t bother going into the trust issues within security agencies. Even in friendly dinner dates with Tanner, M, and Moneypenny, things felt like a Mexican standoff: everyone had a gun pointed at everyone else.

They continued to discuss the dream world and then, gradually, they woke up. Ariadne gave a signal to Arthur for another five. “Let’s see what you can do in five minutes,” she said and Q was about to--

“You nailed the layout,” Ariadne said. “And I... was not expecting that...”  
  
 _It’s all circuitry to me_. He was so tempted to brag out loud, but had a feeling it would impress Ariadne less than it had impressed Bond.  
  
A cool breeze wafted through the city. Ariadne and a few of her projections shivered. “You did that.”  
  
Q leaned against the outside of the Hardrock Cafe. “Did I?”  
  
“You misplaced a few buildings, by the way. Just because your layout is solid doesn’t mean you were perfect.”  
  
“I did that on purpose.” _Not_ bragging this time. 

“Liar.”

Q began walking. “No, really, I did. Look, I replaced the Sears Tower with the King’s Road Tower. And if we keep walking down 5th--” he pointed to a street sign, “---we’ll see The Ark, Le Maritime, the Oxford Place Towers, the Bank of China Tower, Torre Caelum--and look, stop, stop--” He halted in the middle of an intersection and pointed. “The Burj Al-Khalifa.”

Ariadne stared.

“I like diversity. You said... the more complex the maze, the harder it is for the projections to find you. I can tell you about all the methods to my madness at Le Procope, which is right over here...”

Ariadne put a hand on his shoulder, halting him in his tracks. “A date?”   
  
Q shrugged. “A dream-date.”  
  
She laughed. “We can make it a reality, if you wish.”  
  
“That’d be lovely.”

They continued walking down 5th, Ariadne staring around as Q randomly swapped out high rises for other high rises. He was playing around with the urban geography--

And then bright lights streamed into their faces and it took a second to come back to Earth, to Headquarters, and the first thing to become clear in Q’s mind was all the shouting. He was so disoriented, everything blurred together like someone had splashed water onto a painting--

“You can’t do that!” roared Arthur to someone whose shape was rapidly becoming more clear. “You can’t interrupt a sleep session! It’s dangerous!”

“Do _not_ tell me what I can or cannot do in my own facility--”  
  
“Do you want to lose them?! Do you want them to be--”  
  
“Why were we interrupted?” Ariadne demanded, for she had jumped up, yanked off her IV, and was now glaring at M, with her hands on her hips. M glared back but he pursed his lips and said stiffly,

“We have a visitor.”

“Why are there armed guards in my room?” Q asked, blinking around, the shock and fury just boiling idly beneath the surface of his voice. He unhooked his IV and stood up, putting a hand to his head to soothe his abrupt dizziness. The colours were moving back into their normal positions. “Why are there automatic weapons near my computers?! This is a computer lab, not a military training facility!”

“I digress,” said Eames quietly. And the two guards who had been standing by the door moved aside revealing the person who had been hiding between them.

Q’s blood ran cold.

There stood a young woman with straggly, wavy brown hair, dull, chestnut brown eyes, and a frame skinnier than Q’s. Around her wrists shone handcuffs. She wore a dull, cotton blue tee and pale blue denim trousers that were baggy around the legs but a bit too tight around the hips. Her skin was sallow and she had strange black dots up both her arms.

“Anna,” Q breathed, his heart painful against his ribs. He found it surprisingly difficult to breath. And he found himself trembling and he gripped the back of a chair to hide it.

“I’d give you a hug,” slurred the woman, “but, you know.” She held up her hands, jingling the handcuffs.

Q couldn’t speak.  
  
“Do you know her?” asked M.  
  
Q gave Mallory a look and nodded solemnly. “She’s...” he swallowed, “She’s my sister.”  
  
There was a suffocating silence and Q wanted to cringe away and hide from all the accusing stares. In the two years that he had worked for MI6, he never mentioned his family. In fact, he had erased all of them but his uncle from his file.

“She’s my twin sister,” Q continued blandly, as though it mattered. This couldn’t be reality. He was stuck in a nightmare of his own creation. This was the past in the form of a subconscious projection coming back to haunt him. God, the air felt heavy, so heavy, like a suffocatingly warm blanket that was rapidly tightening itself in a choke hold around him. He never thought he’d see her again. She was a ghost from a life he had meant to leave behind, buried in the dirt, more than six feet under. Beneath a wordless tombstone.

“She won’t tell us how she got in,” said one of the guards. “She was just walking down the corridor, unarmed. We have no idea how she surpassed surveillance.”  
  
“She managed to get past the retina scans?” Moneypenny asked in shock.

“No, but we think she could have, if we didn’t find her,” said the other guard, Thompson. “She asked for you,” he added pointing at the young Quartermaster.

M was scrutinising Q. Lines of distrust and apprehension lined his already wearied face. Pallid, distressed, severe: these were all adequate adjectives and Q had no idea what to say or do. Of all things to possibly occur in the universe, to him, _this_ was the least likely.

“What lovely coworkers you have,” she said, in that hideously sulky, syrupy voice. She pouted at him which made her even more obscene to look at. “What, aren’t you happy to see me?”

Q glanced nervously from M back to Anna. “Yes, o-of course, it’s, er, been a while. So... unexpected...”

Pouting, Anna strode right up to him. The guards moved forward but M surreptitiously held out a hand by his side, halting them. She looped her cuffed arms around his neck and Q endured the smoke upon her breath, and the faintly chemical smell of her makeup. The Quartermaster’s body went rigid, stiff as a board, beneath her feather-light embrace. How oddly heavy it felt, nonetheless. Like she was digging up everything he had buried...

“You were never a good liar,” she sighed, her brown eyes so much like his, but without the brightness, the spark inside the irises. “I’ll tell you everything... but only if _you_ ask the questions.” She winked at him and withdraw her arms, standing back.

“Well, that settles it then, doesn’t it?” Eames said, the faintest trace of a smirk lurking at the corners of his lips.

“What does?” Q asked sharply, turning to face Eames and M.

“We need to find out how she slipped past security,” interceded Bond, standing up from the table on which he had been perched. He glanced around. “Have Q question her.”

The Quartermaster was about to protest but when Bond looked at him, it wasn’t a cold gaze, but one of understanding and sympathy. Was he imagining it? Bond actually looked _concerned_ and _worried_ for him. Even Ariadne, in all of her prettiness and intelligence, seemed surprisingly suspicious.

“All right,” he said, resigned. “All _right._ Come on.”  
  
And he led his sister into that dreary, grey room and they sat, on either side of the table. She gazed at him unabashedly.  
  
“You’re a drug addict,” he said bluntly. “The tracks on your arms. Your skin. Hair. Teeth. Eyes.”  
  
Anna cocked her head to the side and pouted. “Such a warm welcome, D... Q. They call you Q, yeah? Fancy dancy, that.”  
  
Q clenched his jaw and glanced at the glass behind him, knowing everything was being watched and recorded. Disoriented, he wondered what 007 was thinking.  
  
“Was,” Anna continued, licking her lips. “I _was_ a drug addict.”  
  
“On what? Meth? Heroin?”  
  
“Both.” God, the way she said that word, the way she said _all_ words, was so reminiscent of molasses, like the syllable clung stickily to her teeth on the way out. Q didn’t remember her ever talking like that when they were younger, but then again, he didn’t recall much of her speech. And when he did, it was mostly her screeching and yelling and carrying on. “Been off for over two years. Still in recovery. But they let me go a couple weeks ago.” She grinned, showing stained teeth.

“Congratulations.”

Q had never performed an interrogation before, especially not on a family member. Both his parents were dead, his only known remaining close relative, aside from Anna, in prison. He tapped his fingers anxiously on the table, drew in a breath and said, “So, how did you get in here?”

Anna pouted again and Q wished she would stop doing that; it made her look 12. “I was never as stupid as you assumed me to be.”  
  
Q didn’t say anything. Anna went on.  
  
“I used to play on all of your computers when you weren’t home.”

“That wouldn’t make you a computer genius.”  
  
Anna simpered. “Noo, I s’pose it wouldn’t. But we both had the same parents.”  
  
“Our parents were daft gits.”  
  
Anna gave a fake gasp, placing a hand over her breast in a mocking air of shock. “Yet you loved Mummy so much! She always talked _so_ much about you! And your angelic voice! Oh yes--”  
  
“How did you get in here?”

Anna stopped her dramatic charade and stared at him.

“Answer the damned question,” Q said through gritted teeth. His sister gazed at him for a moment before sliding out from her seat and walking over to him and straddling his lap. Q flinched and stiffened again.

“What the h--”

“Shhh...” Anna put a finger to his lips and leaned in towards his ear and she whispered, “You want to know how I got in, sweet brother? I was stung... by a _wasp..._ and that wasp told me I’d find the cure to my pain if I followed its instructions...” She looped her arms around his neck again. Q was trembling. “The _wasp_ was so mean to me at first, dear brother... the sting _hurt..._ but then it showed me the way...”

The Quartermaster knew what she was talking about. But... that couldn’t be... there was simply no possible way... Yet here she was: his ill-behaved sister, having paraded back into his life after nearly a decade.

“Get off me.”

Anna cooed at him. “No. No, no, no. You don’t get to tell me that.” Her lips brushed his ear. “You know what I was going through while you locked yourself away in that bedroom of yours playing with all the toys Uncle Neil gave you?”

“Get him out of there,” Bond said unbeknownst to Q. “Get him out of there!”

“While you played with his toys,” Anna murmured almost lovingly, “he played with _me.”_

Q’s eyes widened. “No.” He shook his head. “You’re lying. You’re making it up.” And God, he didn’t want the others to hear this. This was much too personal, much too--

“What a nice life we led, brother, eh? No time for such a nuisance like your own sister. It didn’t matter that she was in the bedroom next door... having sex with the man you so deeply admired. It didn’t matter because dear brother had such high ambitions: Harvard. M.I.T.! The Pentagon! Have you gotten the world yet? ‘He who rules the net rules the world’?”

“Please get off me.” Q’s mouth had gone incredibly dry. She had quoted him. It was something he had said in private to their uncle, but somehow, she knew. She knew everything. But he didn’t want her to know. He wanted her gone. He felt filthy, humiliated. “Get off me, Anna.”

“Have you gotten what you always wanted?” she asked. Her voice was a whisper now. “ _Have you got enough_?”

Q glanced back at the window and that was when the door to the room banged open and Bond flew in, like a bat straight outta hell. Anna untwined herself from around Q, but it was too late; Bond grabbed her arms amidst her protests and half-dragged, half-shoved her out of the room. The door slammed shut behind them.

Q couldn’t move. He sat there, staring at the place where his sister had just been. He sat. Stared. And trembled. 


	9. Chapter 9

Delgado interrogated Anna after that but she was non-compliant. She told him, repeatedly, that she had given all the answers to Q. Q, meanwhile, was also brutally interrogated by M himself, with Sawers watching sternly from the background. But Q couldn’t tell them everything. Firstly, he didn’t _know_ everything and secondly, there wasn’t much to tell. Anna  
had stopped being a part of his life after their father passed away. He didn’t know much about her.

Finally, though, as clever as he was, M zeroed in on the key: “What was she talking about when she mentioned a bee stinging her?”

“Wasp,” Q muttered.  
  
“What?”  
  
“It was a wasp. She said a wasp told her she’d find the cure to the sting if she...if she listened to the instructions it gave her.” Q ran a hand over his face. There was no point in avoiding it or pretending. Anna wasn’t subtle in her code and Q knew it. And M knew that Q knew. It was the strangest thing she had said.

“And what does it mean?”

Q stared at the desk. Mahogany. The sunlight streamed through the big office windows and it clashed with the atmosphere as well as his own mood. It felt as though his world, like his dreams, was finally collapsing around him. Could he deny it? Could he get away with it? No. And there was no other explanation as to how Anna had gotten past security except for the fact that she had had outside help.

_Damn you, Wasp! Damn you! You forced me into this!_

Which meant that Wasp knew who he was. Knew things about him he hadn’t dared to face in almost ten years. But Anna had just outed Wasp - did that mean Wasp had given his permission for Q to mention him? _Should_ he mention him?

“Going through a bit of an internal struggle, are we,” M said, somewhat coldly.  
  
Q made a noise of frustration. “I...” _Goddamnit. Goddamnit!_ “I use outside help.”  
  
“You mean you breach security by sharing information with those outside your clearance?” Heart hammering again, throat drier than the Atacama, Q swallowed forcibly. “No. _No._ I don’t share anything. But... but it doesn’t matter. They know. He knows. I’m compromised.”   
  
“He?”

“Wasp. Wasp knows about me. I--I have no idea--I’m better than he is--I’m more--more secure--I just...” The young man took a breath, sweat beading on his forehead out of anxiety. He hadn’t felt this out of control since as long as he could remember. “He’s an acquaintance. He’s--he’s a hacker. And he’s good. Damned good. But t-to know about me-- about Anna-- we-- none of us know each other--”

“You mean to tell me that you’ve risked SIS security and safety by fraternising with _hackers?”_

Q’s face contorted in distress; it was strangely ugly in doing so. “ _I’m_ a hacker,” he admitted, hating the confession.

M sat back in his chair, once again forcing Q to undergo his penetrating scrutiny. Sawers remained silent in the background, an ominous gloom that hung over the entire office. Q knew that M didn’t like harbouring such powerful forces under his command... especially, when they had the ability to act _outside_ orders. Wasp, through Anna, had just placed him in a corner. Wasp had checkmated him.

“If you need me to resign...” Q began. “I’ll open all my files to my successor. They’ll be encrypted just for him or her... And...”

“Don’t be stupid,” Sir Sawers finally said. M raised a surprised eyebrow. “You’re staying. Whether you like it or not.”

Q didn’t dare breathe a sigh of relief. He knew Sawers wasn’t being kind or forgiving. MI6 finally realised what power they had and they were keen not only to keep it under their control, but to keep it where they could see it. If Q left now, they’d lose him. And who knows what sorts of secrets he might be willing to sell to the highest bidder. They wouldn’t know that Q would never betray MI6, that Q had chosen MI6 over even more powerful entities for various, personal reasons, some of those reasons naive and idealistic.

“Let’s bring in Wasp, shall we?” said M.  
  
Q stared. “That’s going to prove to be a very, _very_ bad idea.”  
  
M stood. “I’m more of a seeing, rather than believing sort of guy. _Show me.”_ Q stood, too, throat dry, he nodded.  
  
“Dismissed.”  


_Hartford, Connecticut, 2000_

_The cool glow of computers was often the most comforting thing in the world to him, he believed. There was only one other place that radiated that coolness - and that was 12 feet under water, at the bottom of his high school’s pool._

_He wasn’t a spectacular diver but he was a strong swimmer. Though not known for his speed or the increasing number of bronze and silver medals on his walls, he still had the reputation of being a fish. And he was more well known in his school and his district than Tony Johnson, who had scored sixteen first place medals in his four years of high school swimming competitions. Versatile, Johnson was. He won in the butterfly, breast stroke, freestyle, and backstroke. He had been an avid diver, that is, until he was killed in a drunk driving accident after prom of his senior year._

_Johnson was several years before him though. And though he never lived up to Johnson’s records, people still mentioned him in the corridors._

_“Hey, hey! It’s the fish!”_

_He had actually frightened his coach when he sat on the bottom of the pool for over five minutes. When asked how he’d done it, he mentioned that it was merely practise and the training of the mind. Ignore the screams from your lungs. Focus._

_Truth be told, amidst posters of girls, Darwin, Simon & Garfunkel plastered across his walls, were enormous pictures of Umberto Pelizzari, a famous free diver, who hosted the 2nd AIDA competition in 1998, which he had watched, eyes glued to his computer screen, with an excited fervor. His favourite book outside his computer texts and history texts was a book that gave short biographies on world-renowned free drivers such as Frêdéric Buyle, Karoline Meyer, and Kirk Krack. He admired their stamina, their will-power._

_Water was soothing. It provided the comfort that computers could not. With computers, he could circumvent the globe. With water, he could circumvent life._

 

Q’s fingers were numb again and he shivered even as he drank his tea. His flat simply wasn’t warming up fast enough. He thumbed in his ID, logged his voice for JJ, and signed into the channel.

<wa*sp around>  
  
Plague was the only one who answered.

(OOC/contact later/)  
  
<urg>  
  
(2 bad)  
  
Q slammed his fists down on either side of his laptop in frustration, nearly upsetting his mug of tea as he did so. It was a dog-eat-dog world. If he didn’t fully out Wasp, Wasp would out him. With the utmost reluctance, Q picked up one of his phones, dialed into a XORed VoIP through one of his fifty-seven VPNs and and rang up Magik.

As expected, Magik answered. Because Magik always answers. Because Magik has no life.   
  
“Hey, mate, how goes it?”  
  
“Where’s Wasp?”  
  
“...am I supposed to know?”

Q pinched the bridge of his nose and counted slowly to ten under his breath. Magik waited patiently for he knew exactly what Q was doing and while he waited, he imagined Q’s icy finger tips dancing across his back. “My sister showed up today.”

“I know,” responded Magik. “She was here.”  
  
The quartermaster started. “She what.”  
  
“She was here, earlier. I told you, mate, that I had somebody you needed to see. Maybe you really should start listening to what I say instead of assuming I’m a daft high school wash-out who never has anything important going on in his life.”

That last part stung because it was true. Q hesitated for a moment, biting his lip nervously. Yes, yes, it was true. He had always taken Magik for granted despite the fact that some of his own best ideas came from this ‘daft high school wash-out.’ Magik had been the one to get him out of that MOD group before it went down, the one who had introduced him to Plague and Jonathan and Christine.

“Did you sleep with her?”  
  
And yet he always assumed the worst of his friend.  
  
“No,” Magik answered with a resigned sigh. And Q still couldn’t help but wonder if Magik was a bit inebriated for he had two personas when pissed: outraged, obnoxious and quiet, pensive.   
  
“Good.” Q sounded like a parent scolding a child. “Because she’s a drug addict.” Not because Anna was his sister, God, no. It didn’t matter that there was a woman on the planet who had his nose, his eyes, his ears, who shared his birthday, had shared a womb... None of that mattered because it didn’t even feel real. Anna had been like a disease to him, something to avoid. And now she’d thrust herself back into his life and this time, there was no avoiding anything, no escaping anything. 

“I know that, mate,” Magik answered again, very quietly. “She’s very sick.”

And in spite of himself, Q felt a small flare of jealousy. Because Magik was being vague on purpose. And Magik had done something for Anna that Q hadn’t done: he’d taken care of her. Q didn’t think he cared about his sister’s well-being, but he knew that he felt possessive. _My_ sister. _How dare you get to know her_. He knew something happened between her and Magik, even if it wasn’t physical.

“You want to come over?”  
  
“Can’t,” Q said more brusquely than he had intended. “I have work.”  
  
“All right.” Once more, there was that sense that Magik was leaving a few things unsaid. They ended the call and Q stood up to get more tea, Moroccan mint, but on his way into the kitchen, he tripped and the mug slipped from his hand and crashed into the floor in two pieces. The remnants of the tea formed a small puddle on the linoleum. Q leaned back against the wall, closed his eyes, and breathed.

The next week was the busiest and one of the most depressing weeks of Q’s entire life. The weather outside was gradually growing crisp and unpredictable. The freezing rain and the occasional bout of snow worked together to provide the most irritating slush on the streets and Q often found himself passed out on the sofa at work in order to avoid the inclement weather. And he wasn’t the only one. He had awoken, several times, to find that Lisa, Mike and Steve, a few of his favourite technical engineers, had also crashed at MI6, curled up in chairs and splayed out on sofas and so forth. Mike was leaving soon for he had been offered better pay elsewhere. Steve had been with the SIS for a couple years but was new to the cyber security team. And Lisa was a veteran, having served for over twelve years. 007 stayed over one night but Q never saw him sleep. He paced the computer lab until Q’s eyes were forced to close out of sheer weariness.

Tensions were high. Cameron had given his approval but that was because Sawers had failed to mention Cobol Engineering and the dream-sharing technology, which diminished the power of the Dream Team, according to Arthur. Mr. Gurr, the DCDI and Air Vice Marshall Rigby, the DC13, watched Q’s team like vultures - they both had a knack for showing up at the least expected and least welcomed times. MI6 was still facing severe scrutiny, even a year after the death of the previous M. And even so, they were lying through their teeth to Parliament. Funny how things work like that.

Scarlet Kingston showed up at HQ several times. Circles lined her eyes and her lips were chapped and dry. She wore little to no cosmetics these days and her hair was always messily put up in a clip. She could always be seen talking to Bond, who seemed to be the only person capable of making her laugh.

“Excuse me,” Q said one day, interrupting their frivolously annoying banter. “But I must speak with 007.”

Scarlet raised both eyebrows but she nodded and stepped away.  
  
“You seem stressed,” came Bond’s nonchalant greeting.  
  
Q ignored the sentiment and presented him with a box. “A SoundBite prosthetic device, which will transmit data back to me via Cloud technology, a biometric HK45 - sorry, it’s not a Walther - and an SD radio. No, the radio is not the same as the transmitter. Here is a file containing all the instructions you need. I suggest you read up, M wants you gone before sun up.”

Bond took the box and the file and lifted the lid, peering in. “A wig?”

“A wig, customised contact lenses, and a tooth capsule for the SB. I would have preferred to have made prosthetics for your face since the Mark’s agency has been known to use facial recognition technology in the past, but I’ve dug into his files: he doesn’t know jack shit about MI6 and he’s not expecting a British invasion. M also said that wearing prosthetics makes you uncomfortable.”

“I don’t normally like things on my face while I work,” he said mildly, closing the lid.   
  
“Unless it’s a woman.”  
  
“Ah, you’ve been listening to rumours.”  
  
“I don’t need rumours to point me in the direction of the truth.”

Bond raised an eyebrow. “So, why so stressed, young Quartermaster?”

Q scowled. “Despite the approval for Operation Asamkhyeya, as Ariadne calls it, we’ve received yet another budget cut. Last year, it was 7.5%. This year, it’s an additional 6%. NASA may be able to send rovers to Mars on a budget like ours, but I’m struggling. I’m using money out of my own pocket because asking Mr. Saito for funds is like giving into bribes. If that ever reached the public, you can bet your arse there would be outrage.”

“And your sister?”

Q shrugged and was about to say something snide like, ‘That’s none of your business,’ but he found that he didn’t mind sharing the truth with the agent.

“She’s in detention under 24 hour surveillance. I still have no idea how she got past security.” Okay, maybe not the entire truth.  
  
Bond surveyed him and Q knew he saw through the lie. Lies. Lies everywhere. Lies all around. Q still wanted to check M’s files to see where Ariadne possibly could’ve retrieved the information that he’d been offered a job at the Pentagon. But after the incident with his sister, Q was reluctant to betray more trust.   
  
“Good luck in Vienna. I’ll be in your ear until your arrival, then you’re on your own.”

Bond nodded and the conversation ended.

Aside from budget cuts and tensions between MI6, MI5, and the Dream Team (now abbreviated TDT), dream workshops administered by Arthur and Ariadne had become even more intense. It was sufficient to say that MI6 had become obsessed with this new-found technology though it was very reluctant to admit it. Questions of morality bubbled beneath the surface of the general attitude but no one dared raise them to the light. Q found himself spending hours at a time in the dream world - not in dream world hours, but in reality hours. And he’d wake up, sore from the induced sleep, and disoriented. Clutching his totem, he’d stagger to his computer and write up a report and submit it to Moneypenny. Ariadne’s misgivings about Bond were still not wholly vanquished for when he arrived later in the week back from his mission in Austria, he was tired and worn out. And his projections were still as as volatile as ever. The dark-haired woman made several more appearances and there was a time when Ariadne found herself locked in an iron-grated elevator that was sinking into quicksand before she shot herself in the head to wake up. Bond refused to discuss her and Arthur faced his first block ever when he couldn’t even dig deep to find out who she was.

Ariadne, Arthur, and Eames rarely smiled at work. It was obvious that the three of them were pissed off at being so restricted. One of Q’s techs became annoyed with their attitudes.

“Look, you came to _us_ for help, but we’re still an intelligence agency working for a prominent government. You are _not_ granted permission to look into things that are none of your business.”

‘None of your business’ - that brought Q back to the subject of his sister and Wasp’s involvement. M was putting the pressure on Q to have Wasp outed by the end of the week, but Q knew it was nearly impossible. No one was talking. TheJester still hadn’t forgiven him for finding out his location (Michigan, United States). Plague only gave non-committal responses, which led Q to believe that Plague knew but Plague could be a rock when he wanted to be.

Q was getting desperate.  
  
And this week wasn’t coming to an end fast enough.

 


	10. Chapter 10

James Bond was not used to having his past splayed out so vividly before himself and others. But after the first couple of workshops and M’s orders that Bond was the agent to be used, no one said anything aloud. Though their stares and awkward gazes spoke a thousand words.

Only Q and Eames didn’t seem to care as much: Eames because nothing ever seemed to surprise him and Q... well, he didn’t know why Q showed only vague interest. Even when the elevator made its routine appearance in the mall of one of the buildings they were working in, Q only glanced at it in passing whereas Ariadne had stopped and stood there, hands on her hips, as though trying to solve a puzzle.

“You can’t keep her alive,” Ariadne had said to him. “You’ve got to let her go. You’ve got to bury her.”  
  
“Why do I get the feeling you’ve said that before?”

Bond found her interest unnerving and wanted to say something else like, “I _have_ buried her already; I don’t need to do it again” but he compartmentalised those feelings and simply walked on through the mall until Ariadne gave up. At the end of the workshop, Q produced a 3D model and laid it out on the table for everyone to see.

“What’s this?” asked M, gesturing.  

Q sighed and said, “It’s the map of the world we’re going to use to extract information from Miss Kingston.”

“We’re ... One moment, when was it decided that Scarlet Kingston’s mind was--” M began.

“She saw the reports,” Q cut across impatiently. “She said she saw them. She didn’t have time to read them but her mind glimpsed them. That information is somewhere inside her subconscious and we need to...”

“...steal it,” Bond finished.  
  
“I’m assuming we don’t have her consent,” said Tanner.  
  
Ariadne paced around the room. “We can’t have her consent. If we told her what we’re about to do, her mind would have time to put up necessary defences... Our job would become much more difficult and we’re running out of time. We’ve spent weeks training. I think we’ve just got to go now. Now or never.”

“I’ve concocted a tasteless powder of somnacin,” said Yusuf.  
  
“You’re suggesting I taint her drink and we invade her mind?”  
  
“Are you volunteering, James?” asked Moneypenny, smiling coyly. Bond look around the room and shrugged nonchalantly.  
  
“I didn’t realise there were others here qualified for the job.”

“Cheers to that,” Q said, turning to Bond, holding out a folder. “None of this goes online. Read it. Memorise it. Burn it.”

Bond took the file, gazing steadily at Q, sizing him up. Then he grinned, teeth and all.   
  
“Brilliant.”

*****

A chilly breeze wafted through the tombstones. All was quiet except for the whispering of the wind. The gentlest layers of frost glossed over the smooth granite and the orange, red, and brown leaves that had gathered around the grave.

Joshua Henry Bramson  
 Beloved son and brother  
1969-2011  
This is not the end. I am content. _Metuo neminem_

Scarlet had pondered what her brother had meant with his final words. The first line was clearly a shout-out to John Quincy Adams, which never made sense to Scarlet. Josh had never mentioned a love or even a vague interest in American history but it really couldn’t be plainer. The second line simply meant, “I fear no one” in Latin. But what was the purpose in that? Josh had no enemies that Scarlet remembered. Though he had been the free-spirited older brother and often deemed a ‘poor role model’ by their parents, Josh had been one of those people who had loved and loved hard. He had lived on the edge, often taking months off work to go scale mountain ranges or live in the wildest plains of Africa. Right before he died, he had come home from an expedition across Antarctica. Still wearing snow gear, he had stepped off the plane, greeted Scarlet with the biggest grin he could muster, and he had said, “I did it.” The next week, he was gone. Died of a brain aneurysm.

He was the bravest man Scarlet had known and everyone knew it. Josh had been infallible in her eyes. Royal Marine. Entrepreneur. Graphics designer. Diamond carver. Modelling on the side. He took on whatever obstacle came in his path. So this last sentiment of his, this ‘I fear no one’ seemed more ominous than encouraging. It gave Scarlet a sense of foreboding.

“It seems so ordinary to mention how much I wish you were here,” she said, setting down a bouquet of flowers. “Right now, we’d be having dinner together. Probably at the cafe you love so much near Covent Garden. You’d probably tell me you have a sudden desire to take a ferry to France and bike to Germany. Or how you’re going to swim from a harbour off the coast of Malta to Tunis.” Scarlet closed her eyes. “I wish I knew what it was...I wish I understood... I’m starting to have doubts and I wish I could talk to you about them. You would know what to do.”

Scarlet wanted to say more but she had heard the sounds of crunching leaves behind her.

“Lily,” said a familiar voice, using her middle name. A strikingly handsome man appeared beside her. He was tall and slender, with lofty brown hair that curled just below his ears. His hazel eyes seemed bright under the cloudy gloom of the sky. A leaf was in his hair. Dressed in a tweed duster, he gazed at her with affection. They embraced. He went in to kiss her but she angled her face away and his lips lightly touched her cheek.

“We have to be careful,” she scolded.  
  
With a sigh, he nodded. “Of course.”  
  
It took Scarlet a moment to muster up the courage to utter the next few words. “You want to know about the report.”  
  
Charles pretended to be surprised but one look from her and Eames knew she wasn’t fooled.  
  
“I destroyed them all,” she said plainly. “I even turned one into a work of art.”

“Good, good,” Eames said, smiling tightly before turning a hardened gaze in the direction of her brother’s tombstone. Despite being much more gentle in demeanor than James, Charles could be scary when he was under a lot of pressure and stress. “Because you know what happens if AREVA doesn’t get what they want. People end up dead.”

“What?” Scarlet blurted out, looking shocked. She looked from the tombstone to Charles and when he noticed her obvious fear and bewilderment, he grinned. But the grin was tight and lined with worry. 

“Just a joke, Lily. One of poor taste, I see. I apologise.” Her brows furrowed into a scowl.   
  
“Very poor taste.”  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
He meant it. More than she could ever know, he damn well meant it. 

“I wish I could kiss you,” Eames added, reaching into a pocket of his jacket and pulling out a pair of sunglasses.

“You know it’s not safe,” said Scarlet.  
  
“It never is.”  
  
“Always watched...” Scarlet looked at him and Eames could see that she desperately wanted to be held by him. She licked her dry lips and added, “It’s really humid out, I’m getting gnats in my mouth.”She forced a laugh. It was code for _Are we bugged?_  
  
“It’s not the bugs I’m worried about.” _But I’m pretty sure I’m being tracked. Don’t worry, love, I’ll throw out the clothes when I get to London._  
  
Scarlet withdrew away from him, disappearing into herself. Worry made her uneasy. “Will you come to the show?” she asked. Eames ran a hand through his hair.

“Did you invite my brother?”  
  
“I had to, Charlie, you know that.” 

Eames/Charles Kingston knew Scarlet never loved James. But it still pained him to hear her mention his name, especially with such... reverence? Fear? Awe? He couldn’t quite tell, but he hated himself for the resentment that was building up inside of him. Falling for someone in an... _arranged_ marriage was something he never thought he’d see himself having to deal with. In fact, this whole _mess_ was something so far out of what he pictured for himself years ago, but yet... he couldn’t imagine any other life. This mess was consuming him.  
  
“A work of art, eh?”  
  
Scarlet pulled out a pack of fags. “I can’t believe we’re discussing such treachery at the tomb of someone I love.”  
  
“I admit that it was quite clever of you... which artist was it this time?” Eames held out a hand and she gave him the pack. He flipped open a lighter and puffed on the cigarette. Scarlet watched closely, the way his lips pursed around the stick of paper and nicotine.

“Fathouwers.”  
  
“Ex-lover?”  
  
“Perhaps.”  
  
Eames grinned playfully. “Oooh, I’m jealous.”  
  
“I’m married to your brother and you’re jealous of an old maybe-lover? How contradictory.” Eames continued to grin at her, pearly whites showing. _What a winning smile,_ Scarlet thought.

_Picture perfect._

Another group of people walked past them towards some tombs nearby: a narrow-looking man, a young woman with straight, dark brown hair, and a youthful looking man with horn-rimmed glasses. They were wrapped tightly in their jackets and scarves.

Scarlet bent down to the tombstone and placed a feathery kiss upon it. When she stood up, she said ever so quietly, “Part of that was meant for you.”

“Let your brother keep it. He deserves it.” It wasn’t rejection. It was Charles’s way of saying, ‘You’ve already given everything to me; I couldn’t ask for more.’

The breeze whipped past them, leaves swirling around their feet. It was time to---

“Tea, Ms. Bramson?” said a caterer, holding up a tray. Scarlet laughed, a laugh like bells tinkling and waved her hand.

“Oh, Braithy! You spoil me so!” She took a cup of tea. It steamed in its freshness. The caterer smiled and blushed bright. “I’m actually no longer Ms. Bramson!” She held out a hand, splaying her fingers to show the shiny rock that now decorated them. Mr. Braithwaite’s eyes went wide.

“How delightful!” he nearly squealed, showing genuine interest. “And who is the lovely lad who has won your heart?”

“Dear Braithy,” she said, her eyes twinkling. “Do you not watch the telly?”

“Never, madame, I’m afraid!”  
  
She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper and the caterer leaned in to hear. “James Kingston.”  
  
Mr. Braithwaite looked at though he were about to have a heart attack. He clutched at his chest with his free hand, his mouth open, gaping. He was all of a flutter, really.  
“The James Terry Kingston? The famous barrister? With that talented photographer brother of his?”  
  
Scarlet smiled surreptitiously, like this was a secret between herself and the young caterer. Her charm was contagious. 

“The very one.”  
  
“Oh, beautiful Scarlet Kingston - you should not be working when there is much to celebrate!”  
  
“We’ll be celebrating after the showing,” Scarlet whispered, that twinkle in her eyes even more prominent. Mr. Braithwaite now knew what authors meant when they described that clever twinkle. Scarlet Kingston was truly happy to the point of radiating like a star. He put his free hand on hers.

“Well, my lady, I certainly wish the best for the both of you.” He gave a little bow, bid her farewell and congratulations again and teetered off to hand out the rest of the tea.

“Excuse me,” said a low voice and Scarlet turned out, finding herself facing a stocky gentleman with short platinum hair and eyes frought with the turmoil of the cold Irish Sea. “Mrs. Kingston?”

She surveyed the newcomer with sly interest. With cheekbones sharp enough to slice mountains and weary crinkles around his eyes, he was very good looking. Thin, pointed lips, an ordinary chin. No, the powerful aura didn’t lurk in the details with this stranger. It was in the big picture. Scarlet took a small step back, not out of fear or alarm, but to get a better idea of who she was dealing with.

“And to whom do I have the honour--”  
  
“Bond,” responded the luxuriously simple man. “James Bond.”  
  
“Mr. Bond,” said Kingston, smiling. They shook hands. “How may I help you?” Standing a bit closer to her, James thought for several moments, letting Kingston take in everything about him.  
  
“I’m interested in purchasing a few pieces.”  
  
“Any artists in mind?”

“I’m not too picky, to be honest. From what I’ve seen, everything is quite up to par with my tastes.” Not even remotely true but Bond didn’t really have an eye for art, he had to admit. 

Kingston began to walk a little ways down one of the rows of paintings. “Do you have a deciding factor then?” She turned to face him but he was right behind her and she started back.   
  
“Several,” he responded smoothly, glancing idly over her shoulder at a wavy-haired man standing a little ways off. The man’s gaze passed over Bond’s before he turned his back on the pair. “But none have struck me cold yet. Care to share a bit of history behind each painting?” 

Kingston drew herself up, eyes flickering with uncertainty over Bond’s attire. Several of the people in the gallery surveyed the agent before moving on. “Certainly, Mr. Bond.”

They started at what could only be the ‘beginning’ of the show, Kingston guiding him through small clusters of people who deliberately made it difficult for him to pass through. A narrow-looking man passed, his eyes just barely grazing over Bond’s form.

“We’ve ordered them all by emotion,” Kingston began, pointing to the selection of paintings in front of them. “Like this one here... It’s very symbolic of--”

“Sadness,” Bond said.

Kingston frowned. “No, actually, it’s happiness.” She glanced at Bond again, hesitant, but he had arranged his features into mild surprise and curiosity. “See the brush strokes. The way they blend in with one another. And the lightness of the colours. Samita’s only fourteen but she portrays emotion very well, even in the most abstract of shapes.”

“Fourteen?” Bond echoed, successfully hiding the skepticism in his voice, but failing to conceal the disdain. They moved onto another section of the gallery, Bond watching her face very carefully. She explained each one, illustrating the lines of emotion in the canvas with her fingers hovering centimetres from their surfaces.

“You’re not an art dealer, are you?” she asked and once more, several people stopped to look at him.

Bond shrugged. “Not exactly. I peruse art for my own personal interests.”  
  
“Decorating a palace?”  
  
“I’m afraid not.”  
  
They paused in front of another section. “This one portrays jealousy,” Kingston explained, vivid and animated all of a sudden. “It’s called ‘Them’ and it’s the artists view of those around him, those with better lives, those who have love and security and stability. Look at the melding of the blues and reds...”

“‘Peter...Peter Lathouwers,’” Bond read off the tag on the bottom. “Belgian? This painting looks almost exactly like the one done by Samita.”

Kingston shot him a look and folded her arms over her chest. “You’re not really here to look at paintings, are you, Mr. Bond?”

“What makes you say that?”  
  
“You’re dressed too simply.”  
  
She began to walk away and Bond followed, now intensely curious. He was wearing a very good suit tailored to his form. “Too simply?”  
  
Scarlet halted, facing him, and said, “Yes. This is the Saatchi Gallery, Mr. Bond, not some mall gallery. Prospective buyers come here to impress. Your low-end Armani _fails_ to impress. Why are you here?” The agent quickly did a mental once-over wondering where, exactly, he’d gone wrong with his chosen attire. 

Bond gazed at her until she lowered her eyes. “You’re right, of course. I didn’t come here solely to purchase art. I came on behalf of your husband.”

Kingston froze. And so did everyone else in the gallery. Bond took mental note of the man with the crew cut off to the back. He handed her a business card. She stood so that her back was to most of the people in the room, twisted her ring, and held it over the card, illuminating a barely noticeable logo printed on the paper. The logo of her husband. More codes. More deceits. “Who do you represent?” she asked quietly. “NCP? C&G?”

“I assure you I represent none of those. I came as a favour to your husband. He wants to be assured that all the copies have been destroyed.”

“Of-- yes, of course they have been. He asked me to-- you came on--” She was so flustered but she kept her cool and smiled at people who passed by. “You really did come on James’s behalf?”

Bond smiled his most reassuring smile, which probably came off as creepy. “Yes, I did. And your face says you’re telling the truth. Your husband will be pleased.” Kingston seemed very uncomfortable now but the people in the gallery went back to perusing the paintings. “The hard part’s over. Now, about this Peter Lathouwers... I really like his work. Do you, perhaps, have any more in the back?”

“Of course,” Kingston said after a moment. “Wait here, if you please?” She hurried off towards the back of the gallery, only glancing back at him once.

The narrow-looking man sidled up to Bond. “Good evening, sir,” he began.

“That man over there,” Bond responded, cocking his chin in the direction of the man with the crew-cut. “That’s not James but it must be James’s brother, Charlie. Same nose and eyes. Younger than when we saw him before... She kept looking over at him. She was playing with her wedding ring, too, so she’s unhappy with the marriage. James has complete control over her, however. She lied about the reports, naturally. She destroyed all the ones she saw, but she has doubts about remaining copies. She suspects there is one hidden here in the gallery, which is precisely where her subconscious stored it. When I told her that her husband will be pleased, she kept looking at this painting here, by a Peter Lathouwers.” Bond indicated a painting behind him that showed two silhouettes of figures standing on black beams. The figures were leaning into each other, forming a triangle with their arms. He assumed it was probably called “Completion” or something else just as cliche.

“Fire alarm?” Arthur asked. Bond shrugged.  
  
“Whatever works. Do it fast.”  
  
Seconds later, a loud sound went off and several lights dimmed. Mr. Braithwaite could be heard shouting over the ensuing noise, directing people out of the front doors. Bond snatched the painting off the wall and began to rifle around the back of the canvas. He pulled loose a small roughly bound manuscript. He could see Kingston walking briskly towards him in the shadows but she was intercepted by the wavy-haired man with the horn-rimmed glasses. Several of the projections were walking briskly towards Bond as he shoved the painting back onto the wall, hurried over to Kingston and--

Bond awoke and blinked his eyes. His heart beat was oddly calm. Arthur and Eames were already unhooking their IVs. He had to admit: it had been impressive to see Eames shift into the form of the ever handsome Charles Kingston. It had been unlike any other disguise Bond had ever seen. Perfectly fluid, incredibly convincing, astoundingly startling. Eames must have not only caught Bond’s stare but read Bond’s perfectly arranged features because he winked in an acknowledging sort of fashion before turning to look at what Arthur was typing.

Conflicted, Bond slid the needle out of his skin and stood slowly. “I was able to glance over the report.”

“Well, that was sort of the plan,” Q said, piling some papers into a neat stack on the table.   
  
“Those layouts were quite useful,” Ariadne reminisced, nodding in satisfaction.  
  
“Wasn’t exactly difficult.” Q came over and turned off the PASIV and packed it up.  
  
Arthur stopped typing and gave Q a sidelong glance; he seemed to be fighting hard not to sneer. “Kingston wasn’t exactly trying to keep us out. She’s not our enemy.”  
  
Q shrugged.  
  
“Anyway,” Bond interceded, “the report was still highly incomplete. I only glimpsed a couple pages and most of them were diagrams of various nuclear facilities around the world including Olkiluoto, Gundremmingen, Taishan and Flamanville.” He stood in front of Q’s laptop and began to type frantically. His report was readable upon a projector screen on the front wall. “There were a few articles and clauses about the materials used to make the control rods for the European Pressurised Reactors. AREVA is denying allegations but it’s all there. Crystal clear.”

“Control rods?” Ariadne asked. Moneypenny opened her mouth to answer but Q cut across,

“Control rods are made of neutron-absorbing material, like cadmium and silver and they’re used to control the rate at which the fission of uranium and plutonium occur.” Q brought up a brief diagram. 

“As shown here... they are inserted into the core of a nuclear reactor...” He pointed. “Aaand... they not only affect the rate of fission but also the amount of steam and, thus, electricity produced. A control rod fails and--”

“Boom,” said Bond, making a sarcastic explosive gesture with both his hands.  
  
Q glanced at the ceiling. “Thank you, 007.”  
  
“Any time.”  
  
“So, if we don’t stop these control rods from being implemented this year, we could have another Chernobyl on our case?” Ariadne asked.  
  
Q nodded. “Several Chernobyls, actually. But yes.”  
  
“That’s quite a memory you have, James,” said Moneypenny and all eyes returned to what Bond was typing.

With his arms folded over his chest, Q stared hard at the list. He looked like he was going to remark upon them, but seemed to be reconsidering. “I suppose I’ll go ahead and conduct background searches on all of these people...”

“That would be helpful,” muttered Arthur. Q made a face. At that moment, one of the doors clicked open and M walked in. Everyone paused but he made a motion at them to keep going.  
  
 “So, let me lay it out. 007, move--” The Quartermaster took the laptop away from Bond and his fingers flew across the keyboard. “We only have a couple pages of the report but this is what we know. NCP is a privately owned company headquartered in Tokyo, which recently began manufacturing faulty control rods. Probably using a weak alloy? We don’t know. I believe that NCP may be unaware of its errors as there is nothing written here of NCP’s direct knowledge. Of course, that could be later in the report but if that were the case, wouldn’t NCP just come out about it? Surely, they don’t want to be responsible for...” Q took a deep breath, shook his head, and continued, “...for the loss of human life. AREVA buys parts from NCP, pushes forward a new generation of nuclear reactors, implements the control rods, undergoes routine check-ups and fails all the preliminary tests. All the details are most likely in the report. A law firm headquartered in Colombia, called Castañeda & García, was in charge of writing up the reports and submitting them to AREVA so the nuclear reactors could be repaired. AREVA either never received the report or denied it, probably the latter.”

“Kingston worked for C & G,” Moneypenny pointed out.

Q nodded. “Maybe James Kingston married Scarlet Kingston in order to get easy access to those reports? It’s a possibility.” He held up a newspaper clipping from the stack of papers beside his computer. “They were married shortly after C & G wrote up the reports. C & G was probably preparing a lawsuit.”

“I don’t doubt that if you cross-check some of those names,” Arthur said, “you’ll find several people who have either worked at C & G or who know people who work at C & G. It’s a coverup.”

“We still don’t know what James Kingston has to do with this. Sure, he married Scarlet at quite an opportune time,” said Tanner. “But that’s not proof.”

“I suppose we’ll have to find--” Q began but was interrupted by the sudden melodic ring of the _Harry Potter_ theme song. Everyone turned to stare at M as Gareth Mallory took his vibrating phone out of his pocket. He gave them a ‘now isn’t the time’ sort of look, which made them all swallow a grin, and answered the phone.

“Mallory speaking.” Pause. Frown. “Of course.” He clicked it shut. “We’re wanted down in the lobby.”

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

Marble floors and walls. High ceilings. Rectangular shafts of light lined the room. Three figures stood off to the side. Q came jogging up to Eve, M, and Bond as they walked towards the newcomers. Two of the figures were guards and the third was a thin man with close-cut blond hair, scruff around the chin, and sunglasses perched on his nose. He was wearing a snug navy blue cardigan over a lighter blue t-shirt. And he wore blue jeans and brown loafers.

“He wanted to see you,” one of the guards said, nodding at Bond. “He came unarmed.”

The man took off his sunglasses, stepping forward to be swathed in light, and held out a hand.

“James Bond, I presume? My name is Mikael Blomkvist and I come on behalf of Wasp.”   
  
Everyone in the room froze.  
  
“Whoa,” said Q.  
  
It was impossible not to stare.

Even Bond stopped dead in his tracks, ignoring Blomkvist’s hand. He was staring into piercing blue eyes. He knew those eyes. He recognised those lips. Those cheekbones. Even the hair.

“Is this some sort of joke?” asked M.

Mikael looked at him. “No, no, of course not. Wasp knew you were... Wasp was aware that a search was being conducted.” His voice was heavily accented. “Wasp could not be here in person, for security reasons. But... I am here.”

Bond narrowed his eyes. “You reported on the Wennerström case.”

Mikael looked mildly surprised and he nodded. “Yes.” He held out his hand again and this time, Bond shook it. “Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Bond.”

“I assure you that the pleasure is all mine,” 007 responded stiffly. Mikael Blomkvist was completely unperturbed by all the staring. Bond guessed that Blomkvist had known what he was going to see. Q scrutinised the man heavily. _This_ was a friend of Wasp’s? Or was _he_ Wasp?

“Eve, please see that Mr. Blomkvist gets a good seat,” M said. Moneypenny nodded and guided the journalist away.

When they were out of earshot, M turned to Bond. “Are you sure you have no siblings? Mr. Blomkvist could be your twin.”

Bond gazed back at him in a mixture of coldness and dry amusement. “Nonsense. I’m much better looking.”

_October, 2012_

_“We do have a serious diversity problem in SIS,” Sir John’s voice rang out from the telly. “The CIA is increasingly becoming a paramilitary organisation, one increasingly relying on the use of drones and special forces to eliminate American foes overseas. MI6 and the CIA have collaborated intensively on intelligence and gathering for decades. But the CIA is getting up to some very questionable practices. This does raise questions about whether the CIA and MI6 will eventually be driven apart by their different ways of operating.”_

_The blond-haired man watched with a notion that he had made the right choice - to put his hope and trust into an institution so stable as MI6. Of course, it was well-known that MI6 recruited agents from around the globe, bribing them into betraying their own home governments. Sir Sawers and Gareth Mallory always praised their loyalties to England._

_“Queen and Country,” the blond man said, taking a sip of his whiskey. “Queen and Country.” Sir John Sawers and Prime Minister David Cameron always spoke of changing gears and doing things more for Britain, looking primarily after Britain’s interests. But what were Britain’s interests? Libya? Disrupting the supply of equipment to Iran’s technical programme? The SIS was bound by UK law and all operations required specific authorisations from the foreign secretary._

_The ghost of a man slammed his glass onto the counter. He wondered how long he could stay dead. A week later, an explosion occurred at Vauxhall Cross._  
  
Jaw clenched, lips tight, the man had stared at the screen in a silent, but infuriated horror.  
  
All right. There was trouble. MI6 needed him.

_It was time to resurrect._

 

Present Day

“You work for Wasp.” Bill Tanner, former M, former Chief of Staff, was keen on getting straight to the point. It had been over a month since Kingston allowed herself to be detained by MI6 personnel. Time was running out. The weather was growing colder with each passing day and everyone was becoming more and more anxious. Lieutenant Bill Tanner and Gareth Mallory were constantly seen walking together, heads bowed, having intense, hurried discussions in low voices. Then Mallory would confine himself to Sir Sawers’s office and they wouldn’t be seen for hours. One Friday, Q Branch hosted a farewell party for Mike Hellgeth, the tech who was leaving to work elsewhere. They had crumpets and scones and cake and Mike hugged everyone before he left.

“Take good care of them,” Mike had told Q. “In all my time here, with the SIS, I’d never... I’ve never been part of an operation such as this.” He grinned. “It’s been a pleasure working under you.”

Q shook his head. “It’s been an honour.”  
  
“Do what you do best and rip those mother fuckers a new one.”  
  
Q grinned back. “Oh, you can bet your arse we will.”  
  
Mike then gathered up his satchel of presents, gave a small bow, and left the building.  
A young woman named Gineta Pakalkaite took over Mike’s position. The transition was smooth and Mikes’s departure barely left a bitter afterthought.  
  
“You work for Wasp,” Tanner repeated.  
  
“No,” said Mikael Blomkvist. “I am friends with Wasp.”  
  
“He a good friend of yours? Go drinking often?”  
  
Mikael sat there and regarded Tanner with cautious eyes. Even Tanner had to keep reminding himself that this was not Bond. Appearances were merely deceiving. Bond was professional and resolute. Mikael was a bit more careless. Both, however, endeared themselves a noble sense of righteousness - Bond motivated by his loyalty to the State, Blomkvist motivated by his disdain for the State. 

“I’m not here to discuss Wasp,” Blomkvist said. “I can only assure you that Wasp is not a security threat.”

“Are you in communication with Wasp?”  
  
At this, Blomkvist smiled. The smile was somewhat pitying. “I don’t have to be.”  
  
Tanner stared hard at the Swede.  
  
“Then why did you come here? Why not send Wasp himself?”  
  
“Because I have information for you.”  
  
“Information?”  
  
“I know how much of the report you have obtained via extraction and it won’t be enough to take AREVA to court. You’re missing vital pieces of the puzzle. I have most of those pieces.”   
  
Tanner glanced back at the window. M looked uncertain. Moneypenny was watching with baited breath. Bond was suspicious. Q’s attention was divided between the interrogation and his computer.

“Everyone is clean,” Q snapped, irritated. “If any of these people have files, they aren’t online.” He turned to M. “How often does _that_ fucking happen?”

“Tsk, tsk,” Bond said. “The mouth on you young people.”  
  
Q snapped his laptop shut.  
  
“You have all the pieces?” Tanner said, skepticism lining his voice.  
  
Blomkvist also glanced at the window before continuing. “In my briefcase.” He shifted in hisseat. “You only know a fraction of the puzzle.” He leaned forward. “AREVA is the big picture. You need to look at the smaller picture. You saw the names on the list. All the signatures. A few of those... should not be on that list.”

“I double-checked those names!” Q hissed. Moneypenny grabbed Blomkvist’s briefcase and brought it into the interrogation chamber where Blomkvist opened it and pulled out a couple of bound manuscripts. He lifted up a clipping and pushed it towards Tanner. It was a newspaper article about supercomputers titled “NNSA lead the world’s Top500 RankingSupercomputers.” Dated July 14, 2006. Tanner scanned over the article quickly and scrutinised the picture.

“That man on the left,” Blomkvist said. “That’s Jean Gonnard. He works for the French Nuclear Energy Agency, the Commissariat à l'énergie atomique and he’s in charge of the Tera-100, the fastest computer in Europe. Next to Gonnard is Dona Crawford. She’s the associate director for Computation, but she’s about to retire. Bruno Pinna is on the far right, here, and he built the Tera-10, which used to be Europe’s fastest computer. He’s retired now as well. But if you look at Gonnard’s connections...he still works for the CEA and the CEA is--”

“...AREVA’s largest shareholder,” Q finished with Blomkvist. “AREVA is in control of a supercomputer. Of course. Why... why didn’t I see that coming...”

“AREVA has prepared acounterattack,” Blomkvist continued. “They need Gonnard as a specialist. To make sure no copy of the original report can be found online.”

“They’re prepared for cyber warfare is what you’re saying,” Tanner said. 

Blonkvist nodded. “Which is why you should trust Wasp. Together, your Q Branch and Wasp... Together, you can prevent this computer from being used.”

“He’s mad,” Q said, looking distressed. “He’s bloody mad! I can’t take on a supercomputer with this--this!” He indicated his own laptop. “We don’t have the funds to fight them!”

“Gonnard is most likely threatening Yves Bréchet, who is the head of the CEA. If AREVA loses money from the publishing of those reports, the CEA loses money, too. They own nearly eighty percent of AREVA’s shares.” Blomkvist cleared his throat. “I’ve met Bréchet. He’s a good man. I’ve worked with him before. Here he is.”

“He’s an innovator,” Blomkvist said. “But that picture is over two years old. Here are more recent pictures of him.” Tanner surveyed two more photographs - candids by the way they were shot. Yves Bréchet no longer looked like the happy man in the primary photo but he was rather haggard and ill. “The last we heard he was being pressed to retire. But there is no reason for it.” Blomkvist looked down at his papers. “He’s a genius. His works involve physical metallurgy, thermodynamics, microstructures, phase transformations...” Blomkvist turned a page. “Plasticity, fracture micromechanics, material selection, structural materials design, biointerfaces, structural biomimetics... He’s won awards. He is the high commissioner for atomic energies. He’s the counsel for AREVA. Why would a happy man with a beautiful family suddenly want to retire? What is happening? That is a question you ask.” Mikael Blomkvist leaned back in his chair looking a bit flushed.

“So tell us,” Tanner said coldly. “Why would a man such as Bréchet opt for retirement?”   
  
“Because of this.” Blomkvist took out another piece of paper and pushed it across the table.   
  
“A boarding pass...”  
  
“Three boarding passes,” said the Swede. “All under James Kingston’s name. James Kingston flew from London to Antwerp, Belgium, to Paris, France. He met with Bréchet. He probably bribed him. He flew back to London. Phone records show he was in touch with an unknown person, a person in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.”

“Do you know who that person is?”

Blomkvist sighed. “No. That is the only obstacle. We could force all those people on the list to cooperate but we still have that one person. That unknown variable. It’s all here except for that. However, I do think you should look more into your benefactor.”

“Benefactor?”

“A Mr. Jiro Saito, I believe, yes? Yes. I see all the cut backs on the news. I know your money is not your own.”

Tanner tapped his fingers on the table. “How do you presume that?”

“Because... because NCP is privately owned. It is under the ownership of a...” Blomkvist checked his notes, “...a Mr. Atsuhiro Saito.”

“You’re saying Mr. Saito has a son.”  
  
“I am not saying. I’m telling.”  
  
Of course. It all made sense. Saito’s company was under the threat of a larger energy corporation. Saito would use MI6 to protect his property. So this was really Saito versus Kingston, with MI6 and TDT caught in between. Tanner was starting to feel as though MI6 really held no power here. They were all pawns.

“Prove NCP’s innocence. Take out Kingston’s contact. Allow AREVA to fail. Save lives.” 

Tanner licked his lips and nodded.

* * *

“Run it by me again.” M was pacing.

“NCP builds faulty control rods for AREVA’s nuclear reactors. Kingston is invested in AREVA through a few friends in CEA, AREVA’s largest shareholder. Kingston married Scarlet Bramson, an associate at the law firm investigating the nuclear facilities. Bréchet is most likely being blackmailed into helping conceal the reports. Blackmailed probably by Kingston and Gonnard, Gonnard who is head of IT at CEA and who built the Tera-100. And--” Eve began.

“We don’t know who Kingston’s contact in Saudi Arabia is.”  
  
“Islamic fundamentalists?” inquired Bond.  
  
“Could be,” interceded Arthur. “But I doubt it.”  
  
“Are we sure Blomkvist told us everything?” asked Ariadne.  
  
“We can’t be sure of anything. We’re dealing with cyber warfare,” Q muttered. He was pale.   
  
“The report shows the weaknesses of the AREVA nuclear reactors, including the faulty parts created by NCP. If such a report were to come to light, AREVA would be shut down.” Eve paused and thought for a moment before adding, “M-most likely.”

“And if AREVA has chosen to ignore the report?” M pressed.

“The nuclear reactors fail causing a, ah... catastrophic loss of life and severe damage to the environments surrounding the reactors.”

M frowned. “Why would AREVA not come out immediately about the faulty parts?”

“It would mean a detrimental loss of money for the company. It’s already suffering from ventures in Africa and from the Fukushima Daiichi disaster from 2011. It’s already implemented the failing control rods. The company could be sued. And it would probably go bankrupt.”

M stood there for a moment, an intimidating presence, and, lost in thought, stared at the space between Eve and Bond. 

“AREVA is willing to sacrifice human lives in order to keep itself afloat?” 

Moneypenny, nearly breathless, nodded. “That seems to be the case, sir.” 

The look that crossed Mallory’s face was one of the utmost disdain.  
  
“We seem to have several obstacles,” Bond said.

M made a flourish, urging them to continue.

“Q says that CEA owns a supercomputer; the fastest in Europe,” Moneypenny responded. “They are already prepared to move against us should we look into this further. I wouldn’t be surprised if CEA is generating its own forged copy of the report, a report that eliminates the mention of faulty control rods... If the reactors fail and a fake copy of the report has been released already, AREVA can sue NCP.”

“Shifting the blame,” murmured M. “I see.”  
  
“We need to do something about that computer,” Q said flatly.  
  
“What are you saying?” Moneypenny pressed.  
  
Q, with all swagger gone, ran a nervous hand through his hair. “It means a trigger has to be pulled.” And Q turned to gaze at Bond. “Or maybe more than a trigger.”  
  
“What you’re suggesting is close to terrorism!” Ariadne said. “You can’t do that!”  
  
“Not close,” Bond said grimly. “It _is_.”  
  
“If we’re going to have any success with this at all, we are going to have to change the minds of those involved, destroy a supercomputer in the process, annihilate the contact in Saudi Arabia, and publish the real report.” Q said this all very fast. “If we can find a copy, that is.”

Bond made a face. “Piece o’cake, really.”

 

 


End file.
